Well, who's it gonna be? and you are free to post the reason for your love for the race as well.....

I didn't see dikoted albino gnome rigger/decker/mages listed, so I'm not sure what to pick.

[edit]With mnemonic enhancers and enhanced articulation and dikoted AVSs, as well. Almost forgot about that [/edit]

I in particular have always been impressed by players who want to play a high charisma troll. ( Possibly of that one meta-type [brain-memory name allocation failure] that lives around Ireland and doesn't have the penalty )

I'm still waiting for December 11th, 2011...I want a pair of pointy ears damnit. And don't you people tell me any of this "You have to be born an elf" crap. I could be a spike baby! And if the IEs had normal ears during the downcycle, so could I!!

The Abstruse One

Dwarf of course.... +4 to Attributes, and not stuck with spending one out of every 10 karma on a dumb pool.

Oh... roleplay reasons... Bah, nothin says roll-playing like an "Argh! Where'z my gun?!?" in the mornin.

I ain't gonna play anything Fugly looking, that cuts out Trolls and Orcs, Tired of all those damn treehugger types, that cuts out elves. And I can't handle the Karma Pool of a Human, that leaves Dwarf, and they're, IMHO, alot more fun to roleplay.

Sphynx

Orks, and not for the typical (physical attribute bonouses) reasons. They are the 'underdog' metarace; Most numerous (except for breeders, that is), yet overshadowed by the elven 'coolness effect' and the trollish size. They also fit the gritty Shadowrun atmosphere pretty well. And not all of them are the ugly brutes the everage (Humanis) joe thinks they are.

My last character was a female Hobgoblin combat/stealth (with more of the latter than the former) decker, who had that 'dark beauty'; Not too pretty, mind you, and definitely not a sex kitten, but not the stereotypical ugly Trog either - quite symmetrical and well-built, but with two 'devilish' black horns, fangs and long, smooth dark hair, with large, dark eyes and a pale green skin. Her racial -1 to Charisma came from scaring people rather than being ugly - she had quite a demonish appearance. Good for the club scene, though, for exoticism reasons. Had a she-devil Matrix icon for a good reason

elves all the way!
i dunno why, but i've always loved elves (in any RPG) and in SR, they're even cooler ('cause SR, to my knoledge is the first ever RPG to make a significant difference between the elves and humans while most other RPGs try to balance them with humans...).

and also, elves in SR don't always have to be tree-huggin', fragile arrogant people. they can be tough too. take an example:

my fave char is an elven combat mage from japan. he has long white hair and a complete-matrix-rip-off coat (no, actually it's just a secure longcoat made of black leather).
he always wears sunglasses (and it doesn't bother him; astral perception negates all visibility modifiers since life give off light and earth is life) and wields a katana when his manabolts and guns won't do the job.
he never shows any emotions in combat, and he kills in cold blood.

that's one kick-@ss elf!

no changers or ghouls? i'm NOT surprised.....
keep it up! (pretty please?)

call me boring but I like humans...In my munchkin phase (before the crysilis) I was fond of Phys Ad or Combat Mage Elves w/ a few points worth of essence thrown over to the cyber.

Humans. Humans, humans, humans. Two words: karma pool. Another few words: extra build points. Another pair of words: numerical superiority.

~J

Orks Orks Orks Orks Orks Orks Orks Orks Orks Orks

Orks are the living Nerps™ of Shadowrun! What's not to love? C'mon, adopt an ork today. You know ya wanna!

I have to say, I've always been a sucker for Elves, call me a stereotypical sap if you will. Although my two favorite and longest running Shadowrun characters are a Human Merc and a Dwarf Rigger/Decker, so go figure.

I'm tied. I love Humans, I love Dwarves, and I love Orks.

But I swore my next PC would be a Ghoul, and I'm gonna hold to that. <G>

Humans, dwarves, orks, trolls, whatever, anything but elves. Pretty much since I first glanced at the SR2 basic book that had the scientific name for elves of Homo Sapiens Nobilis I've hated them. Fragging superiority complex the size of the planet, but a bullet kills them just as dead.

I did vote for human though, as while I will occasionally play another race for role playing reasons, the extra karma pool is hard to pass up.

Elves ofcourse!!!!! Hermetic mage ofcourse!!!!!!

Why does people feel the need for apologizing for the fact that they like elves???

Seriously though, why elves? Well firstly i have always loved elves, but why. Well because elves have a potential for taking the long view, that exeeds the other races by far, in a way they are the closest you can come to a dragon in SR in that aspect. Mystery - Me? Yes, Magic - Me? OOOHHH YES.

Omer Joel - Kudos on a cool character concept.

When an elf tries to use their pomposity to make fun of my troll body, I run after them to smack them into the seventh world. They of course have confidence when they make fun of me because they think they can run faster. However, they quickly learn that my cyberlegs have a quickness of 10.

My favourite race is... whatever is appropriate. Seriously, I have no particular favourite in terms of race. I just look at a character concept and think "If I made her human what plot hooks would I be adding? What would they be if the character was an elf or ork?". I look at race as a larger part of the character. I don't think "I'll make an Elven pistol adept", I think "I'll make a former bodyguard for a high up in the Salish Shidhe who failed hi boss, got arrested, got freed by the Triads in exchange for certain "services" and who is working as a shadowrunner because he doesn't have any real other option available to him. Oh yeah, and he's an adept too.". I then look at which race would suit the character best, what each option would add to the character, until I find one that best fits, thus adding to the character further.

I will admit I tend to favour elves slightly in part because a lot of people hate them. I love making elves that do not fit the stereotype at all, lacking a superiority complex or indeed thinking themselves inherently "better" than anyone else. The most noble character (in the humble, martyr type sense) was an elf.
I love breaking stereotypes and as elves have so many negative ones I inevitably play more because I have to break more stereotypes (just as an aside, I always imagined Goemon from Castle of Cagliostro to be a great "elf" type character. Don't know why though)

And the good looking trolls from Ireland are the Fomori. One of my favourite characters was a Fomori troll. She proved to the world that even trolls were capable of being cute!

I chose humans, but I'm surprised that neither Otaku nor metavariants got were available options.

T'skrang, T'skrang, T'SKRANG!!

And for those of you who have been speculating that we have been killed off or that the mana level is not yet high enough for us to express:

We are here and we are UNDERWATER! *head-bob* *tail-swish*

Ghoul with a ruthenium dermal sheath. He's jsut one of the crowd.

Troll. Well educated trolls who can spot cool skills like etiquette, and a million or so knowledge skills, but can still out armwrestle a puny human without blinking.

Yeah, not to mention the "I'm big and ugly" factor.

Humans, damnit!I meanrealyI love making humans who can walk up to a troll and make that poor bag of flesh prey for mercy.

But really their greatest power is that they blend into crowds.Isn't there like 50% humans....

I like humans the best, simply because they're versatile, and in my world of Shadowrun, being a metahuman actually means you're special. However, even though I like playing humans the best, it has to be said that there's a special place in my heart for the race that can claim to have the muscle density of aligators; Dwarves.

i chose elves becuase middle aged means 250

"happy birthday joe, your over the hill. hows it feel to be pushin 40?"
"yea joe, hows it feel to know im gonna be dating your granddaughter?"

I'm a fan of humans. To me, metahumans should be rare-ish, and as a result I dislike making a character metahuman (or magically active, for that matter) unless it's key to their character. Not that I won't think "how would race X work in role Y", more that I dislike "I want to play an X, and wouldn't it be cool to make her a Y".

I also dislike elves, not because they can't be done well, but because too many people come at them thinking just "kewl and sexxie". Elves, IMO(&C), are only better than other people at making other people think that elves are better than they are. Think benign cult members. But I dislike players thinking that their characters get perks for being elven, and similarly writers giving elves cool perks just for being elves.

Giving cool perks like what, Anymage?

Every other race but humans have cool perks. That's what makes them different. You think a troll's size and brute strength, an orc's general physical advantage over human's yet maintaining not to be as ugly as trolls, or the dwarf's inherent toughness and knack for tinkering stuff not cool? Elves were made to be the cute, fast type in general. That's what makes them different. If they were just the same as humans, it becomes less of a real difference, but just for flavor purposes, to use elves.

Anyhow, i chose human because they're cool for being normal.

Elves all the way... same reason as some above. They've always been one of my favourite races!

Kage

Since the option wasn't in there, I didn't vote - but Koborokuru is my fave race. For roll-playing, that is

Come on...for a measly 10BP you get +1 to Body, +1 to Willpower and a whooping +2 to strength, not to mention thermographic vision, resistance to toxins and diseases and both natural immunity flaws... the only negative thing about being one is racism, and while significant it can be worked around ("whatdidyoujustcallme? See this [horribly big and powerful gun/dikoted spur weapon foci/nasty damaging spell - take your pick]? It says you treat me and my friends nice, or else... you freakishly tall fragger. And come down to my level where I can look you in the eyes [punches big guy in the nuts] - there!")

Seriously though...they are cool - small, hairy, japanese and hated.

Now, for the all-important role-playing I have no favorites - all races and character types have their own rewards as far as roleplaying goes.

Oh, and while you are at it... make the Koborokuru an albino drake ghoul changeling physical magician, with almost exclusively non-visible SURGE effects, who was trained by a dragon and given dikoted weapon foci spurs, nasty damaging spells and a horribly big and powerful gun Now you just need to give him a house-rule edge that makes him earn karma pool like a human does, and you can't go wrong! (Of course, using the normal BP system and 123 BPs, you now have something like 38 BPs to spend on skills and attributes and resources...but who's counting

When i GM, i like elf females, coz my players get the impression that they're soft, fragile, and easy to overpower. This is especially useful when trapping their macho stud humans and orcs.

But that was before. Now they've learned to deal with cutesy elven girls. That's good for me, though, since im able to focus on running them the campaign. They used to just go out in bars and flirt most of the time(and they had soooo much fun, meantime, i felt so uncomfortable flirting with them as i had to RP the elf girls). They even had this 'conquest' chart to see who has the most chiks in one night, those bastards. (Bad part is, some of them even want some detailed RPing while their char and the chik get it on.)

Anyway, elves are my second favorites, then orcs, then trolls, then dwarves.

I like elves. Okay, you've got to train them not! to eat the flowers but after that, they are better for lawnmowing than sheep. And they don't crap on the grass either!

Well, actually I hate elves. Maybe due to players picking eleves because of "benefits" rather than concept and the "cool factor" a lot of GM give those sugar a***d feyes.

For me, it's mostly the good ole human in it's tremendous variety. <Humanis>After all, it's still our world, not the one of those godd***ed subhumans that try to steal it from us </Humanis> With a good GM they are the "favored" race, easily blending in where others stick out, making a great "face" or spy character. With a good GM....

Played around with an Ork (actually an Ork triplet[1]) but retired the character since the group became another "Elven Mages ruling the world" thing with not much to do for mundanes and non-elves. Too bad, liked the lil russian bugger(s).


Birdy (Amerindian KiAd prefering the Chinise culture)




[1] Q:How does an Ork form a gang?
A: He's born!

For reason's already mentioned i chose orks.

Down trodden, overlooked, underated poor fella's with their six bothers and 4 sisters with barely enough food to feed himself and his girl friend.

Yeah gotta be an ork. I mean who would expect that you went to MIT&T?

anymage, what?

SR3 pg 313

human 63%, elf 12%, dwarf 3%. ork 19%, troll 2%, other 1%

now, thats only registered, i would nearly guarentee theres a buttload of SINless orks out there. metahumans are not rare, there are more humans, but that depends where you are. sure, in montana a caucasian person would be the norm in his cowboy hat and 20 pound belt buckle, but in atlanta they arent exactly going to "fit in". the red hot nukes are a gang made up entirely of dwarves, all physads IIRC. the spikes are an all troll gang, and the ancients are all elf. this isnt like some woody allen impersonator club in de moines, these are large gangs with major influence in their area.

magic isn't rare in the shadows, for the same reason deckers, street samurai and riggers arent. if your a mage, either you run the shadows or be a talismonger, go corp, or do something unrelated to magic. street samurai con pretty much only run the shadows, and deckers can only be runners or corpers. so yea, a good percent of runners are magically active, because runners arent the "norm"

alsom there are no immortal orks, if you dont like IEs, you can always leave them out of your game. in game i have never had coffee with ehran, never went halves for a pizza with dunky and never been shot with a naval weapon. YMMV

Soft, fragile, hot elven girls, who could refuse them?

At the end of a good day's work, they are veeerrryy welcome to a tired, paid, happy runner.

I do like strange combinations.

My favorite I think was a friend of mine who made a Jewish Troll Mage named Hershel or as he pronounced it "Hoyshel".

When people would suddenly realize that the Troll was in fact a kind and timid scholar fascinated by magic, they would often get a strange look on their face, which he would always challenge with the question:

What?!? You neva seen a jewish Troll before?!?

Great character, good fun.

Sunday.

Love the Jewish troll!

My favorite race didn't make it into the poll--Dragons! They're big, they're scary, they're magical, and they can take human form! What more could you ask for?

Seriously, for PC material I prefer humans, with elves coming in second. Since I tend to play mages and/or faces, it's not hard to see why. I've occasionally thought it would be fun to play a nonstandard troll, but never really had any desire to play a dwarf or an ork.

Went ork, for personal preference reasons, but I gotta tell y'all about my FAVOURITE NPC created to assist my players.

Troll female, maxed out charisma and mods to make her a giant VIXEN! Former BDSM Prostitute, turned owner of a brothel.

She was pretty damn cool - she ran a sideline as an information broker - it's interesting what you pick up when people are PAYING you to torture them!

Yeah, troll females are really cool. One of my players is currently playing one. Same idea, cept she gets +4 to get spotted, and/or identified in exchange for a non functional(purely flavor) demon wings and tail. She's a mage and whenever she casts spells, she starts chanting some Old Latin language. She also had a custom implant, which allowed her to speak in different voices (like when possessed). She's a Demoness.

I like it because she's almost purely a flavor character backed by good roleplaying. Really nice.

Most of the newbs actually get scared of her, even though they can easily kill her with their munched characters.

Flavor is what makes a great character, nice moves of the bondage Troll =)

Nastiest Troll I know (not wackiest, that was Hoyshel) was a phys ad of Scottish heritage who INSISTED on wearing a kilt and he wore it in the "traditional" fashion. Which meant any dwarf who was standing close enough and looking up received the fright of his life.

Sunday.