race popularity

[Volourn]

"dwarves were master craftsmen and metalworkers and able to live underground"

Dude. That is what dorfs are 99% of the time. ARE YOU GUKKIN ON KRAK!?!

 

[Kev Inkline]

Broos are bros.

 

[Ovplain]

Usually human, sometimes female elf, never anything else.

 

[hello friend]

all elves must die

 

[Luckmann]

your favourite PC race

I'm that special breed of faggot whose favourite PC race is aasimar, tiefling, etc., basically signalling that I want to be unique but also prefer vanilla over chocolate.

Spoiler

I'm actually a pistachio kinda guy.

 

[Cael]

Never played gnome what's their niche?

Dwarves that are not as wide as they are tall, at least in the early DnD days. They gradually morphed into tricksters and pranksters. Except Whisper Gnomes. Those are silent death incarnate...

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it's not a matter of how we chose races, it's how they're built. a human can be anything, an elf can be only a spellcaster, a ranger or a fag, and the more classes you have the more the tip of the scales moves toward humans.
it's hardly a matter of preference.

the saying goes "jack of all trades, master of none" but usually humans are master of all trades, barely surpassed by some extreme minmaxing here and there which is most of the times not worth the effort.
back when i was a wee lad i worked on my own sci-fi pnp rpg (the most advanced stuff we could get on computer was arena. fuck, i'm an old fart) and there humans were jerks of all trades, they had their place because they were the most bloodthirsty of all races (i admit the inspiration from alan dean foster's books) but they were gimps. in a classless system which left you free to act however you want, yes, you could choose to tread the familiar ground but why, when you're missing massive boni and perks like being able to polymorph at will your thousands of facial muscles, or having a latently psi-linked twin, or being a so fast parallel thinker that the master has to help you pick the best choices and outcomes?
see, usually you have nothing like that, you get humans who are perfect for anything and some other stereotype who can be barely more efficient at it. of course i'll pick the not ass looking one.

 

[Ranarama]

AASIMAR 1,767

Why do so many people want to play a character with Asthma?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[laclongquan]

wanted to complain about people not bringing any new data to the table but...
Everything so far shows the same trend, even when looking at codex members(with as expected elves being swapped by dwarfs).

Im quite surprised. Before any of this i kind of assumed more or less even distribution between humans/elves/dwarfs. Creating more than 3 races seem quite a waste of resources. One would argue just to stick to human PC and potentially have companions of other races.
I really wonder how distribution looks on dos2.

I said it before: human is pretty xenophobic. Of course we would choose to play as human, mostly.

Orcs, dwarves, various elves... I honestly want them to be thrown out of fiction already, I want to see new races that are more obscure. I've also passed that period where you try to associate character with yourself, I just create an image in my head and roll with it, it's dissapointing to me that 99% of time you have to play human, I really want to see something more original. The classic race stock has become incredibly stale to me, even though I haven't played that many games.

Also, have you played Serpents in the Staglands yet?

where:

Your mortal body will be that of one of the game’s five playable races, varied and a breath of fresh air in a genre that too often borrows from Tolkien’s works, and will choose one of the three racial variants to further differentiate character creation.

The races are:

Ameythevian
Varuchov
Lachovinian
Taratorith
Pasaaren

What's the real details of each one, or are they just human with different names?

 

[Cael]

wanted to complain about people not bringing any new data to the table but...
Everything so far shows the same trend, even when looking at codex members(with as expected elves being swapped by dwarfs).

Im quite surprised. Before any of this i kind of assumed more or less even distribution between humans/elves/dwarfs. Creating more than 3 races seem quite a waste of resources. One would argue just to stick to human PC and potentially have companions of other races.
I really wonder how distribution looks on dos2.

I said it before: human is pretty xenophobic. Of course we would choose to play as human, mostly.

Orcs, dwarves, various elves... I honestly want them to be thrown out of fiction already, I want to see new races that are more obscure. I've also passed that period where you try to associate character with yourself, I just create an image in my head and roll with it, it's dissapointing to me that 99% of time you have to play human, I really want to see something more original. The classic race stock has become incredibly stale to me, even though I haven't played that many games.

Also, have you played Serpents in the Staglands yet?

where:

Your mortal body will be that of one of the game’s five playable races, varied and a breath of fresh air in a genre that too often borrows from Tolkien’s works, and will choose one of the three racial variants to further differentiate character creation.

The races are:

Ameythevian
Varuchov
Lachovinian
Taratorith
Pasaaren

What's the real details of each one, or are they just human with different names?

Ameythevian - Purple gem people
Varuchov - Russkies
Lachovinian - Little fish people
Taratorith - Big spider people
Pasaaren - Boring old people

 

[Black Angel]

This is my favorite race

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

wanted to complain about people not bringing any new data to the table but...
Everything so far shows the same trend, even when looking at codex members(with as expected elves being swapped by dwarfs).

Im quite surprised. Before any of this i kind of assumed more or less even distribution between humans/elves/dwarfs. Creating more than 3 races seem quite a waste of resources. One would argue just to stick to human PC and potentially have companions of other races.
I really wonder how distribution looks on dos2.

I said it before: human is pretty xenophobic. Of course we would choose to play as human, mostly.

Orcs, dwarves, various elves... I honestly want them to be thrown out of fiction already, I want to see new races that are more obscure. I've also passed that period where you try to associate character with yourself, I just create an image in my head and roll with it, it's dissapointing to me that 99% of time you have to play human, I really want to see something more original. The classic race stock has become incredibly stale to me, even though I haven't played that many games.

Also, have you played Serpents in the Staglands yet?

where:

Your mortal body will be that of one of the game’s five playable races, varied and a breath of fresh air in a genre that too often borrows from Tolkien’s works, and will choose one of the three racial variants to further differentiate character creation.

The races are:

Ameythevian
Varuchov
Lachovinian
Taratorith
Pasaaren

What's the real details of each one, or are they just human with different names?

"As a god, you have to create an avatar for yourself as a mortal disguise. You can create up to five avatars, of which the first one is your main character. The game ends if your main character is dead, forcing you to restart or load a saved game.

You can switch non-main character avatars for unique companions later in the game.

Contents
[show]
Traits available for avatars Edit
Ameythevian Edit

• Celestials (+1 skill level with Fearful Light spell)
• Unshaken (+1 skill level with Rally skill)
• Fire Weavers (+0.2 increase in attack speed when equipped with elixirs)

Varuchov Edit

• Weepers (+2d1 physical damage if equipped with a shield)
• Frost Jackals (Start with a noble house crest)
• Horned Ladies (+5d1 hit chance when underground)

Lachovinian Edit

• Blood Omens (+1 skill level with Feverish Haze spell)
• Disciples (+5 extra hitpoints at start)
• Faithful (+5d1 physical and spell dodge chance when fighting humans)

Taratorith Edit

• Sapphires (+10% extra emeralds when selling items)
• Onyx (+1 Perception)
• Citrines (+1 skill level with Linguistics aptitude)

Pasaaren Edit

• Quezhev (+2d1 physical damage if equipped with a whip)
• Vestine (+1 Occult)
• Macha (+5d1 physical and spell dodge chance when fighting monsters) "

http://serpent-in-the-staglands.wikia.com/wiki/Avatars

+ other stuff of course.

 

[unfairlight]

I choose caster and mage roles the majority of the time, which means I will usually also choose an elf character.

 

[fantadomat]

At least now we know who are the midgets and who are the furfags.
It is a surprise that we have only one real furfag.

 

[janjetina]

Voted human, but I primarily look at stats, skills and other features of the PC and choose based on that

 

[Cool name]

Humans. Don't think I've ever made a non-human PC in any game where you're given a choice.

Creating more than 3 races seem quite a waste of resources. One would argue just to stick to human PC and potentially have companions of other races.

Honestly, I'd be quite happy if all the effort put into having other races w accompanying stat/story differences was instead put into having different backgrounds for a human PC w accompanying stat/story differences.

Which, come to think of it, is yet another thing I liked about AoD.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

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.

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. Oh my, how original.

Although it doesn't really come up these days, there is (was?) at least some interesting lore for the Argonians and Khajits, and even some of the other races. The Argonians have the whole Hist thing going on, have gills for breathing underwater which along with poison resistance lets them happily flourish in Black Marsh, the Shadowscales, and possibly other more trivial shit I'm forgetting. As for the Khajits, they're supposed to have many different types and sizes depending on the phases of the moons, ranging from enormous quadruped "battlecats", to the relatively common bipedal ones seen in most games, to ones that are barely any different to the average housecat, plus the usual racial bonuses for being cat-like (claws for unarmed attacks or climbing, night vision, stealthy, good reflexes). There's also a bunch of lesser details hidden away in some of the books. For example, in one scene in one of the King Edward books, after a few of the others go off to either have sex or to watch, he talks how he'd prefer privacy for that sort of thing, or how Khajit's prefer eating alone so they don't have to hear people chew.

King Edward: Part VII

Beech, Ssa'ass, Mats and the Khajiit woman, Silk, had also gone off together, laughing. They'd invited Mith to come along, but Mith had declined.

"Khajiits! They're all turning into a bunch of shameless Khajiits," Mith said. The short Dark Elf sat close to the glowing embers, knees to chest. His hair and eyes glowed in the dim light. "If you're going to pair, you should pair, not turn it into an tourney. They'll be selling tickets next. But each to his own. Khajiits think we're weird because we like eating as a group. Silk says it put her right off her food at first, listening to everybody chew. Well, having a bunch of watchers puts me off--I s'pose you're too young for this kind of talk."

Then there's all the racial stereotypes from the joke books, like Nords are idiots, Redguards are useless and/or cowardly in combat, Dunmer are horny and promiscuous (but don't like people watching, it seems), Wood Elves are untrustworthy, that sort of thing.

Of course these days, yes, the differences are mostly aesthetic with a minor trait or stat bonus or some shit, and a bunch of the lore is either redacted or never seen/used in game.

Horned Ladies (+5d1 hit chance when underground)

+5d1

Isn't that just +5???

 

[Hassar]

Humans only. One of the few things FF got right until it got ridiculous with the bunny women and JRPG cute races. Never had interest for alternate species. Also, it’s annoying when an alternative species is used to explore racism or human problems. Wnds up being another reason to not having human characters from other skin colors and cultures. I think Quest for Glory is still one of the only series with a section taking place in an African culture.

 

[AdolfSatan]

It depends on the setting:
In videogames, most of the time I'll be picking a human, leaning into a class that'll allow me to get the most out of a chaotic neutral/good build. Aka smart and charismatic, but strong enough to bash-in the skull of whomever that won't happen to agree with that which I consider to be 'good'.
But this is mostly due to constraints presented by the medium itself; most videogames offer no other solution than a game over/dead end/closed quest-line upon a state of failure, so I find myself forced to prepare for winning at all times, rather than adapt when facing defeat.
There's also rarely any proper implementation of features available to different races other than minor changes to flavour text in the game world, so there's no incentive to go for anything else racially.

Now, if we're talking PnP... I have way more fun rolling and dealing with shitty characters (always 3d6 for stats, 3/4d6 is for pussies) than going for the AWESOME SELF-INSERT LIVING THE FANTASY OF BEING A CHAD type, so, more often than not you'll find me playing a halfling bard/thief.

Never played gnome what's their niche?

They're just fantasy jews. You're supposed to despise their trickery and greed, not to play them.

 

[Belegarsson]

Never played gnome what's their niche?

Sit creepily in your garden and scare burglars away.

 

[Moonrise]

I play human every day. It's a shit race. No Dwarf no buy. Looking at you, Dragon Age II.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Hyperion]

Whatever has the most Strength.