I went back and double checked some of the other pop distributions from the Shadows of North America and that put a hole in my population distribution line of thought. It seems that depending on where you live (other than the Tir), you see that it's usually either the Ork or the Elf that have the second highest percentage behind the Breeders. I guess I'll fall back on my other observation, that Trolls have a hard time because of their Monstrous appearance and that Elves have a hard time because of the public perception that you can't trust them. (Tir Tairngire anyone?) If none of these arguments make any sense to you that you would have to agree with some of the other posts and say that the priority costs seem a bit arbitrary. If they ever do another edition or a revised edition, they should state clearly why some races seem a bit over priced. Until then I'll stick w/ my metahuman bias argument. (Plus I hate tinkering w/ rules I shelled out my hard earned bucks to use)

My point is that just because someone's done the math doesn't mean anything's been conclusively proven. It means someone used numbers to back up their opinion, and it shut everyone up for a while.

Hell, when was the last time anything really got "proven" here, or on any other internet forum?

It was about to happen shortly before New Year's Eve. That's why the forums went down.

~J

Someone (Dr. Funkenstein, I think) did a more detailed version, but here's the basic math for elves, so no one has to go thread-digging:

Bonus Attribute Point equivalent (x 3): 6
Exceptional Attribute Point equivalent (x 3): 6
Low-Light Vision (equivalent to Night Vision Edge): 2
Racism: -1
Bad Karma equivalent: -5

So elves are 8 points based purely on the points. But as I said before, you can do specific things with them that you can't duplicate with a human (or any of the other metaraces).

And racism at only -1 is pretty laughable in my opinion (and my game).

If and when the old forums are back up(if ever), I'd direct you to a 10+ pages of argument with Polaris. But as it is, Glyph's post roughly illustrates the argument.

And Racism is the elven equivalent of the Elf-Poser or Human Looking depending on how you look at it. Racism at only -1 may be laughable in your game but to the numbers the developers assigned stand as so until SR4 comes out.

If the GM feels elves are overpriced in his game, he can do the same thing as any halfway decent DM in a fantasy setting does: IC fudge factors. I know a GM who almost obsessively keeps track of in-game time and only allows clerics to pray for spells _at_the_exact_time_ the sourcebooks say. Or they get no spells. It stopped some of the worst munchkinisms that gods opinions and clerical dogma was enforced.

In the same vein, if trolls/orcs/whatever seem too cheap compared to elves, simply start making NPCs react more negatively to the "monsters" (racism is a very real problem, after all), or allow the pretty elf a few social perks based on popular opinion.

But people in general already act more negatively to the non-elves. Faced with the same amount of racism, the average elf has 5 dice of Charisma to counteract that. The average dwarf has 3, the average ork has 2, the average troll has 1.

Hardly. If you're an Otaku, it matters. If you want to negotiate, intimidate, or get a high level of Etiquette to obtain rare goods without help, it matters. If you can astrally perceive and have a low Strength, it matters.

~J

psst... An otaku has a flat limit to his Etiquette. Intimidate/interrogate, yes.

1) The limit is for chargen, not thereafter.

2) Likewise, Otaku can't astrally perceive. Each of those were separate.

~J