Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

race popularity

your favourite PC race

  • human

  • elf

  • dwarf

  • ugly humanoid (orc, half orc, ogre, stronger and bigger humanoids go in here)

  • midget (halfling, gnome, fairy, anything that can run between legs of human oponent)

  • furry (furry and scales bucket. Check this if you want to be a dragon )


Results are only viewable after voting.

Dzupakazul

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 16, 2015
Messages
707
I like pretty much all of the classic races and will roll them equally depending on what I feel like playing. If I were to play a beer & pretzely tabletop game with friends, I probably would roll a gnome because I have the voice range to pull them off. Unfortunately, I'm a Forever DM and I haven't made a playable character for a campaign in a long while now, although I do still am sorta fond of NPC gnomes for shopkeepers and so forth.

Didn't vote because I tend to have a character concept and then decide which race fits them best, and I don't really discriminate unless, say, the character model is really bad.
 

RatTower

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Apr 24, 2017
Messages
468
Did anyone say dwarves?

594.png
 

Ladonna

Arcane
Joined
Aug 27, 2006
Messages
10,639
It usually depends on how the race is portrayed in each game, and what it does well. If a halfling gets good bonuses, I would make a halfling. Ditto for whatever.

Where did the 'gay elf' stereotype come from anyway? Tolkien elves were incredibly powerful in the books, being taller, stronger and capable of living forever...then somehow elves became gay.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,295
It usually depends on how the race is portrayed in each game, and what it does well. If a halfling gets good bonuses, I would make a halfling. Ditto for whatever.

Where did the 'gay elf' stereotype come from anyway? Tolkien elves were incredibly powerful in the books, being taller, stronger and capable of living forever...then somehow elves became gay.
DnD. Mainly 3.x.
 

Dzupakazul

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 16, 2015
Messages
707
Where did the 'gay elf' stereotype come from anyway? Tolkien elves were incredibly powerful in the books, being taller, stronger and capable of living forever...then somehow elves became gay.
I always thought it came from the idea that the gist of roleplayers have a fixation on "manly" traits and "no-nonsense" storylines, so they love dwarves; that's the general attitude around here (where I live), especially given how heavily bearded your typical RPer seems to always be.
And since dwarves have an enmity with the elves and many players consider playing the stereotypical Urist McDwarf to be pinnacle of roleplaying (because of how blunt and no-nonsense he is, plus it's fairly easy to sound like an angry Scotsman all the time), they also often focus on roleplaying out the "gritty" elements of most settings like casual racial prejudice remarks (knife-ears etc.)
So basically, dwarves are more heavy metal than elves in most mainstream media and associated with extremely manly activities, so they're manlier than elves.
Many players whose character of choice is something like a Male Human Fighter (which is a fine choice because it grounds your character in a reality and makes everything easier to relate to their person) will feel a similar way, because they often exhibit similar traits, though not nearly as egregiously.
Elves also often are depicted with feminine appearances.

Tolkienian Elves have a brave standing army and are excellent weaponsmiths; that doesn't show much in the lore of most roleplaying game settings.
Elven affinity for spellcasting (ergo, colourful dresses) and "cowardly" tactics like archery in most games makes it also much easier to focus on the elements mentioned above.

You could focus on truly feral and dangerous elves like the Warcraft Night Elves, but even Night Elves had become horribly lukewarm compared to their "giving the legendary orc warchief a massive, impressed boner" moment that defined them in Warcraft 3.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,295
Where did the 'gay elf' stereotype come from anyway? Tolkien elves were incredibly powerful in the books, being taller, stronger and capable of living forever...then somehow elves became gay.
I always thought it came from the idea that the gist of roleplayers have a fixation on "manly" traits and "no-nonsense" storylines, so they love dwarves; that's the general attitude around here (where I live), especially given how heavily bearded your typical RPer seems to always be.
And since dwarves have an enmity with the elves and many players consider playing the stereotypical Urist McDwarf to be pinnacle of roleplaying (because of how blunt and no-nonsense he is, plus it's fairly easy to sound like an angry Scotsman all the time), they also often focus on roleplaying out the "gritty" elements of most settings like casual racial prejudice remarks (knife-ears etc.)
So basically, dwarves are more heavy metal than elves in most mainstream media and associated with extremely manly activities, so they're manlier than elves.
Many players whose character of choice is something like a Male Human Fighter (which is a fine choice because it grounds your character in a reality and makes everything easier to relate to their person) will feel a similar way, because they often exhibit similar traits, though not nearly as egregiously.
Elves also often are depicted with feminine appearances.

Tolkienian Elves have a brave standing army and are excellent weaponsmiths; that doesn't show much in the lore of most roleplaying game settings.
Elven affinity for spellcasting (ergo, colourful dresses) and "cowardly" tactics like archery in most games makes it also much easier to focus on the elements mentioned above.

You could focus on truly feral and dangerous elves like the Warcraft Night Elves, but even Night Elves had become horribly lukewarm compared to their "giving the legendary orc warchief a massive, impressed boner" moment that defined them in Warcraft 3.

From Races of the Wild. Note the androgyne in the pic, bottom left.
Elves.png
 

Vulpes

Scholar
Joined
Oct 12, 2018
Messages
148
Where did the 'gay elf' stereotype come from anyway? Tolkien elves were incredibly powerful in the books, being taller, stronger and capable of living forever...then somehow elves became gay.

It's simple, really. Elves are typically potrayed as tree hugging hippies. And hippies are notorious homos. Ergo, elves are massive cocksucking faggots
 

glass blackbird

Learned
Patron
Joined
Apr 9, 2015
Messages
664
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
I like playing rogues, and usually the halfling or whatever has the best rogue skills or stats, so I tend to make those. Simple as that
 

Vulpes

Scholar
Joined
Oct 12, 2018
Messages
148
All other races are inferior to the glorious whites,and should serve them:smug:.

This but unironically
This but edgily, attempting to impress everyone and get attention, cause I'm a newfag.
Sure, go ahead. No one here has a problem with you being an edgelord. But as a fellow newfag, I think I should warn you that speaking the truth isn't really considered all that edgy around here. My advice to you would be to continue what you've been doing these past four years. After all, nothing says edgy like pretending to be retarded
 
Last edited:

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
Except "lizard" or "cat"-people are not "unique". Just humans with superficial, purely physical animal features thrown in, in most cases. Usually it goes something like +2 speed/agility/whatever for "cat-people" or +to some other stat/some resistance to "lizard-people" and that's more or less all the differences from humans. Basically they are just humans with scales or fur.
That depends on how they are realized and used.
In any case physical and physiological differences give you a more ground to build upon* than plain old trio of:
  • Humans, but pointy-eared, androgynous and metrosexual. Usually like trees.
  • Humans, but short, hairy, and stocky. Usually don't like trees. Don't like bullshit, but tend to like rocks, gold and alcohol.
  • Humans, no buts.
*)
If anyone has any doubts regarding how powerful this kind of stuff can be when building fictional races and cultures, they should GTFO immediately and not come back until they have read Ursula Vernon's "Digger" comic.
Yes, it's technically furry - deal with it.
Oh my, how original. Dwarfs can do the same thing but in addition dwarfs in games can copy the Tolkien-esque lore and culture which makes them different from humans.
Copy you say? Oh my, how original.
:roll:

Never understood the popularity of dwarfs I allways thought they are obnoxoius and incredible boring, I mean is there any fantasy universe where they are vastly different then Tokien's dwarfs.
I usually play the more unique races like lizzard or cat people or good old humans.
The main advantage of dorfs is that they are usually a kind of anti-elves.
They are kind of STEM race compared to elves' usually being liberal arts majors.

The kinds of Orcs that are actually fun to play (basically bethesdian orcs - no one really wants to play the wigger kind) are in many ways like dorfs in regards to being anti-elves but taller, greener, tuskier and likely less materialistic.
 
Last edited:

PorkBarrellGuy

Guest
White human males.
That's as reduntant as saying "short dwarves", "tall giants" or "thieving jews"
Not in this time-line.
YZ4ZpQS.png

"Representation matters."

No it fuck-ass does not, you stupid cunt. All this fucking tells me is that you're fucking incapable of imagining yourself as anything but a black woman. When the fuck did tabletop RPGs become the domain of those with no fucking imagination?
 

Ovg

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2010
Messages
921
Location
Potato
If I make one char and the rest are premade, It's human or some demi-human, like aasimar or thiefling or yuan-ti in dnd or godlike in poe2, or, or whatever is still recognisably human but with minor details.

I hate elves cuz they gay and stuck up. I read too much tolkien too early, and still think of them as "that race that is humanity, but better in every way"
I hate orcs cuz they all niggers. Also ugly. Or to be more serious, because the whole "honoruable / savage warrior" shtick also got boring by now.
I am neutral toward dwarfs, hobbits or gnomes. They usually just blend in, as I can't recall a signle setting, apart from dark sun that made any of those "different".
Kobolds are qute, but good for npcs, or for playing as them in dwarf fortress in the name of masochism.

I fuckin loath kender, whoever plays a kender should go get shock therapy and then gas chamber.

If It's a full party, and say you have 6 slots, I try to fit as many different races as possible. To make it look interesting.

Also, bonus points go to games that go beyond the tolkien shit and become inventive. Even gypsy elves that are actually not better than humanity at anything, like in dragon age for fucks sake.
 

Telengard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 27, 2011
Messages
1,621
Location
The end of every place
Where did the 'gay elf' stereotype come from anyway? Tolkien elves were incredibly powerful in the books, being taller, stronger and capable of living forever...then somehow elves became gay.
Elves were called gay before the 80s, way back before a lot of the people on this board were even born, and way back before 3e, or even 2e, or even AD&D. Now, the fact that tween boys of the 80s and 90s called anything they didn't like "gay" certainly added to the stigma, but it was a stigma that was already in existence. In fact, one of the prime selling points on the box of a certain RTS ancestor was "NO ELVES!" Yes, even Tolkein elves were called gay. Why? Think bitchy and cruel, rather than the fastidious and effeminate part of the gay stereotype. Plus there's that whole singing a lot, drinking wine, and avoiding heavy foods. *ahem* It's not much of a reach to associate Tolkein elves.

And then there's the drow. The visceral hatred of drow was nearly immediate, because 1) they were a bit too obvious in their depiction of BDSM sexuality and only dweeby tweens like it obvious, and 2) Drizzt became a symbol of the fall of the olde dungeon-delving D&D and the rise of epic-story D&D, and thus for many, Drizzt (and thus drow in general) became a symbol for hated change, and 3) your typical early drow/Drizzt fan had serious personal and sexual identity issues, which they then roleplayed loud and proud amongst a bunch of dweeby twins - a recipe for disaster.

So, elves have long been thought of as being gay because there is a lot of crossover between how the elves have been portrayed since time immemorial and the modern stereotype of gay culture. And as for drow, they are thought of as being BDSM because, well, that's the way they were designed to be. (Also, there's a large crossover between the gay and BDSM communities, so dark, gay elves doing BDSM -- it all fits together in a neat package.)

Now, how do these concepts get conveyed so widely amongst a young audience playing role-playing games? Well, part of that is just standard kid folklore: kids telling each other old tales that they think they made up amongst themselves. But also, put yourself back in those early days, and remember that it's somebody like me in the office chair thinking of a way to sell this crap to you - you, a puerile, sex-obsessed, dweeby tween. Ask yourself, what would excite that horny, ignorant, dweeby tween? And what would I be willing to have put onto paper in order to make your dweeby tween selves plunk down their allowances? What sorts of images would I have put on the cover to make you pay out your hard-earned geld? Would somebody like me be willing to use gay iconography to sell you this crap?*





* The answer is most emphatically yes, in case there was any doubt.
 

jungl

Augur
Joined
Mar 30, 2016
Messages
1,420
Humans are so goddamn boring. Ill usually never pick human unless I'm forced to cause of min maxing reasons. Its hilarious making butt ugly midget in korean mmos and having butthurt anime fans literally get enraged seeing how ugly your character in comparison to their waifu.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,295
White human males.
That's as reduntant as saying "short dwarves", "tall giants" or "thieving jews"
Not in this time-line.
YZ4ZpQS.png
So, the stupid bitch can't play a black woman in a PnP game because there is no black women in the handbook? What the fuck? That sounds more like a problem with her table than the handbook.

Listen, you dumb fuck. Stop playing with racists!
 

111111111

Guest
White human males.
That's as reduntant as saying "short dwarves", "tall giants" or "thieving jews"
Not in this time-line.
YZ4ZpQS.png
So, the stupid bitch can't play a black woman in a PnP game because there is no black women in the handbook? What the fuck? That sounds more like a problem with her table than the handbook.

Listen, you dumb fuck. Stop playing with racists!


Sounds like she just sees a black women in the handbook and she's happy to see somone who is black in the DND book.
Why is everyone so triggered ??
She is just being happy not like she chose to put a black person in there.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,295
White human males.
That's as reduntant as saying "short dwarves", "tall giants" or "thieving jews"
Not in this time-line.
YZ4ZpQS.png
So, the stupid bitch can't play a black woman in a PnP game because there is no black women in the handbook? What the fuck? That sounds more like a problem with her table than the handbook.

Listen, you dumb fuck. Stop playing with racists!


Sounds like she just sees a black women in the handbook and she's happy to see somone who is black in the DND book.
Why is everyone so triggered ??
She is just being happy not like she chose to put a black person in there.
No. She is talking about being represented. That is quite a difference to seeing a black woman in a book and being happy about it, which is, by the way, racist in and of itself.

In a RPG, you represent what you want. That is the whole point of a role playing game. To say something in a RPG represents you is fucking retarded. The fact that she cannot play a black woman and have blacks represented in her game shows that her table is racist.

The problem is not the game, which is merely a collection of rules that you follow to create your own story. The problem is either her or her fellow players.
 

111111111

Guest
White human males.
That's as reduntant as saying "short dwarves", "tall giants" or "thieving jews"
Not in this time-line.
YZ4ZpQS.png
So, the stupid bitch can't play a black woman in a PnP game because there is no black women in the handbook? What the fuck? That sounds more like a problem with her table than the handbook.

Listen, you dumb fuck. Stop playing with racists!


Sounds like she just sees a black women in the handbook and she's happy to see somone who is black in the DND book.
Why is everyone so triggered ??
She is just being happy not like she chose to put a black person in there.
No. She is talking about being represented. That is quite a difference to seeing a black woman in a book and being happy about it, which is, by the way, racist in and of itself.

In a RPG, you represent what you want. That is the whole point of a role playing game. To say something in a RPG represents you is fucking retarded. The fact that she cannot play a black woman and have blacks represented in her game shows that her table is racist.

The problem is not the game, which is merely a collection of rules that you follow to create your own story. The problem is either her or her fellow players.


I seriously don't think she means it that way. She just happened to see a picture of a black person in a dnd handbook and is happy that wotc acknowledged her ethnic/skin or whatever the fuck she is. I fully agree with you about the representation thing considering dnd is in a fantasy world and shouldn't have race politic shit in it..
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom