K, so I'm snowed in and board. What metatype do you play? Just curiouse what peoples preferences are for PC race. Also, how does racism effect your game? Getting some ideas for future runs, so I thought it'd be fun to learn everyones take on this. Guess I should have said prefer to play.

Traditionally, a human. Recently (in the past two years), an ork or a dwarf. I'm just a fan of those Priority D metatypes for some reason. In other games, I tend to gravitate toward orks if the game doesn't marginalize them into barbaric tribesman.

Edit: I've played at least one of every canon playable race, including Ghoul and Shapeshifter, at one point or another. At the moment, I'm in a "Dwarves are great!" phase, but I'm sure that will pass.

I played a free spirit once...
But mostly humans.

I usually pick humans. Easier to roleplay more convincingly, not such a large gap in the Karma Pool, and personally, I'm more of a cyber-punk fan than a fantasy one. I just think elves and dwarves and stuf fare kind of dumb. Bu hey, to each his own.

humans and orks, occasionally trolls. i don't think i have any active elven characters at all.

Meh... I'll stick with halfling.

Cuz I'm the GM and the GM is whatever friggin' race he wants to be.

Elf (my main character), but I have a human semi-main character as well.

In Shadowrun I've played elves as far back as I can remember. Of course given my group's preference for long campaigns, I've only played two serious characters since the game came out. Ironically enough, when I play fantasy games I usually play a human.

Of the 3 characters I actually made with the intent of playing, 2 were elves. The only SR character I've ever used as a player was an elf.

As a GM, I try to keep the NPCs in their appropriate demographic proportions.

I most often play Orks, Though i do sometimes play Human or Elf.

Never Played a Dwarf in Shadowrun, and only once that i remember i played a Troll.

Elves or Humans. No other race holds any appeal at all for me.

I keep intending to make a Troll or Dwarf character, but I don't get the opportunity to play (as opposed to GM) very often. All the characters I've so far played are human.

Almost exclusively human.

I'll play the occasional elf for fun.

I'll play the occasional ork for a combat character.

Human (0 BPs is an advantage)

Elf or Dwarf, usually when I need something specific.

You know, I realize I've never played an ork. I have played a dwarf with the 'human looking' edge before. It actually probably should've been a flaw, because as it got played out, everyone kept mistaking him for a twelve year old.

I voted "something odd" because I wasn't certain how my character should be classified.

My GM says that I should call him "Human"; actually, however, he's an Immortal Elf (a relatively young one; he's only about 200 to 300 years old at the most) with the "human-looking" Edge. I haven't written a full backstory for him yet, but my GM said that his thoughts were that he was a spike baby I.E. who, unknown to him, was descended from an Immortal Elf on one side, or both sides, of his family.

The idea was that he thought he was "normal"--that is, human--until an unexpected surge in the mana level near his birthplace activated the hitherto-dormant "immortality gene" in his DNA, simultaneously activating his magical ability (UGE, anyone?). After realizing that everyone he knew grew old and died while he didn't (why am I suddenly reminded of Duncan MacLeod? ), and that he was capable of doing things that most people couldn't do, he went underground, moving frequently and concealing his true nature. It wasn't until after the Awakening in 2011 that he realized that there were others like him.

The idea was to give a starting character plenty of power without having to explain why a several-centuries-old PC was still running the shadows.

--Foreigner

I'm all over the map. Currently setting up to play a game as an elf, but I've made humans, elves, the occasional troll or orc, two dwarfs, a night one, a gnome, a waykambi, and a number of other creatures.

JaronK

I GM primarily, but when I play, I am one of the lanky fey from Africa.

I voted for something odd, because nothing else fit.

I have no real preference, and tend to play a bit of each race.

I GM mostly too, but I'm really a twink-munchkin at heart.

Troll Adept with Ranger-X Combat Bow

I often GM, but over the years I've played a bit of everything. For some reason I keep playing more elves than anything else, though, so I chose that. It's kinda strange, because in other game systems I absolutely detest elves and the people who insist on playing them. But in SR they're cool. Or something.

I like shifters because they're a cool concept, and the regen is nice ^-^, but, i'm not allowed to play those =(

So, i play humans, because elves are too expensive and eveyone thinks Orcs are ugly and i don't know how to play a troll. Dwarves are jus too short for me, though i have played one >_< and... yeah, that's about all... Variants are too goofy for my tastes (and don't fit with the ED backstory) so, i leave them out.

heh. i like metavariants because they don't jive with ED.

Elves, mostly. I've got a few round-ears and stumpies running around, an NPC or two (basically) trog...but mostly Elves of every flavor and variety.

Orks and trolls as know one else ever wants to play them and i like to be different, they always seem to play humans and Elves........ get alot of stick mostly along the lines of 'you are thick chummer' and had a nasty run in with the polly club to, they didn't like my troll much..... but now the are dead and can rot in hell....

LOL


torz x

Human, exlusively. And usually at the place where man in lost inside the machine, and being 'human' is a question of morality, machinery. Not merely genetics.

-RM

I usually go for Humans. The zero bp/priority was a big factor, but I also find it easier to come up with deviant character concepts for humans. For example, the ganger character I played once was the only human "throwback" in a family of orks...justified the high strength and body...

I only occasionally play an Elf or Ork.

you mean there are other races than dwarf that you can play..... why would they have that?

Mostly dwarves and orks, but I do have a ghoul whose concept I'm very proud of (though I've never gotten to play him).

I voted elf, as my original and most-used character is elf, and I think they outnumber my other races by a few. I've had at least 3.

But I've also run a troll, two orks, three humans, a ghoul, and a shifter.

The ghoul was a fun one. The GM let me play with SURGE as much as I wanted, even after I told him "You realize I could kill half the city with this, right?" Chronic Osteocuspis and Natural Toxin (VITAS), injury vector. One scratch from any of his bone spikes (he had a very high melee skill) would make the target roll to resist infection against both HMHVV and the VITAS plague.

The shifter was created to try out an idea I had. Basically using those healing adept powers in SotA to transfer damage to myself, then let regen heal the damage.

Most of the times i played elves, but my current character is a human face. Had two orks and a dwarf too.

meta-varie

i like pcs with flavor, and the mvs have more flavor than humans too bland for me

I voted elf because the one character I have still going is an elf but I've played all five of the standard races - no metavariants, no shifters, no vamps etc - not that they're disallowed - one of the players does a very creditable effort with a jaguar shifter.

Probably my favourite character ever is my namesake - a troll physical adept.
Before I landed my recent 50 hour a week job I had several characters going in various online games over the last two years - the breakdown is two orks, one human, one elf and three dwarves.

This is kinda interesting in that the poll numbers are vaguely like the actual SR population numbers. I mean, the largest single group by far are normal humans and the other metatypes are decreasingly common. Interesting.

I've had exactly one character of each of the basic metaraces, with the balance being human. I've never played a metavariant, though I don't have any particular aversion to them (well, most of them... dryads are terribly mishandled). I don't play shifters or ghouls, and don't allow shifters as PCs in my games, nor starting ghouls... though you can become one the hard way.

And I'd say that these poll numbers are pretty good evidence that, however the numbers might work out, Elf priority/BP cost is perfectly fine right where it is.

Keep in mind that this poll encompasses all three editions, two of which didn't have Elves costing more than Dwarves and Orks. Add to that the fact that a lot of the forum members are GMs, and haven't actually had a chance to play for years.

Still, I'm amazed as to how close these numbers are to the actual population of the Shadowrun world.

Generally, shifters are seen as too powerful, especially when they're made mages. They are very powerful, but have been a bit downgraded and are playable, at least ina upper to high power campaign (they can still be downed by a well-aimed assault rifle burst with Exex - as a friend of mine's leopard shifter/shaman found out the hard way. Never leave your home without sufficient armour ...).

As for ghouls ... I personally would find them hard to integrate into a group. It would be virtually impossible to have either of my main characters run with one - they'd simply kill the ghoul at the first opportunity, unless the ghoul managed to conceal themselves (a comparatively hard task). But generally, I don't see any problem with them, provided no other characters have an aversion against ghouls in particular or "undead" (HMHVV infected) in general. *shrugs*

shifters are really hard to play, because they're balanced badly. not unbalanced; their advantages are, roughly, as good as their disadvantages are bad. however, their advantages and disadvantages are huge--too huge to easily fit into a normal runner group. on the one hand, they're pretty damn hard to kill; on the other, if you've got a shifter with straight average stats, you've just spent 84 build points. it's harder to build a multipurpose shifter than it is to build a multipurpose adept!

my favorite analogy, for balancing shifters, is the see-saw. if you put a 300-lb kid on one side of a see-saw, and a 300-lb kid on the other side of the see-saw, the see-saw is technically balanced. in reality, though the see-saw isn't going to work, because it's going to break. same thing happens to the game, when you try to use 300 lbs of disadvantages to balance out 300 lbs of advantages.

All good points, John Campbell.

In my game, even though the players are fairly familiar with shapeshifter abilities, they would probably be scared of a werewolf of comparable Karma to themselves. One never knows what a shapeshifter is thinking, and even though the players may know what in-game bonuses one would get, they can't know his motivations or intentions. They would know that his thought processes are animal, regardless of how human he appears.

As to ghouls, we had one in our game, and when he was discovered to be a ghoul, he had quite a few problems becoming part of the group. In fact, he never really did, as feasting on the flesh of metahumans creates a bit of a stigma that never really goes away. I think after witnessing firsthand the effects of HMHVV Krieger strain, the players are more frightened of getting infected

As a GM, my feeling is that if a player wants to play something, be it shifter, drake, or ghoul, I'll let 'em. If they would have fun running around at night feasting on bums that sleep in the park, more power to them. My view is that limiting the racial possibilities detracts from the game experience.

I had a player who really wanted to play a ghoul. He had a neat concept and backstory. I wasn't going to say no to a race that's canon if it would make the game more fun for him, because the fact is, it's a game, and games are meant to provide fun.

That being said, I stick to canonical races. If a player says, "Hey, It'd be fun to play a great dragon!" I'd reply with "Yep, try a drake and earn 100K+ Karma."

Now before I end this fraggin' monologue, I would just like to say that I am not attacking anyone's views. As always, this is IMHO and YMMV
( in fact probably does V)

I'm Blunt, Stubborn, Fearless, and I often bite off more then I can chew... care to take a guess?