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Admiral Squish
2010-12-17, 12:15 PM
I was talking with one of my friends and we got to the subject of fantasy races. My friend apparently hates dwarves. Another friend hates gnomes. Then, the one who hates gnomes commented that everyone hates one of the fantasy races. So, I'm curious, is he right? If he is, which one do you guys hate? Are half-orcs annoying to you? Do those snobby elves infuriate you? Are half-elves whiny emos?

Psyx
2010-12-17, 12:18 PM
Pretty much all of the non-core races as PCs irk me.

Sometimes it's like adventuring with a menagerie. I wouldn't mind if it was for flavour, but the massive influx of Kobold PCs after RoDr came out indicates firmly otherwise.

SamL
2010-12-17, 12:21 PM
Halflings. What the hell? Are halflings AND gnomes really necessary in the same system? It just seems redundant to me. I guess I could say the same about gnomes, but they seem more classic to me, so they get a pass.

Incidentally, having a tab in your browser that is just headed "Race you Hate" REALLY doesn't look good.

mootoall
2010-12-17, 12:21 PM
*Grumble* Goddamned tree hugging elves ... *grumblegrumblebumble* I point you to Eldariel's "guide to being Bane" for prime examples of prissy elves.

Dalek-K
2010-12-17, 12:22 PM
You might want to change the title to "What fantasy race do you hate" right now yours is a bit... yeah...

Anyways... Before things turn ugly..


I actually don't like halflings. There is no need for them, they are just small humans after all... Not very mystical >.>

Although Belkar is the exception, maybe if the race was more violent and like belkar I would like them :D

I don't like DnD elves but I like the Elvaan from final fantasy (dust has a good description of them in the FF2d6 game). Instead of being born to be magic users, their society raises them to be strong and defend their home land ... Kinda like the elves from 4.0.


***
Ninjas! NOOOOOOOOO

Kobold-Bard
2010-12-17, 12:23 PM
Halflings. Wouldn't say I hate them, I just don't get the point of them.

Glyde
2010-12-17, 12:23 PM
I don't think I *hate* any particular races. They can all be played well, it depends on the player.

I guess you could say I hate stereotypes. Or what certain players always try to play (despite our efforts, we have a player who *always* wants to be a Human Samurai. The one from CW. And won't take alternatives. And wants to be Kenshin.)

Nanoblack
2010-12-17, 12:24 PM
I have a very powerful hatred of every aspect of anything elven. DWARVEN POWER!

true_shinken
2010-12-17, 12:25 PM
I guess you could say I hate stereotypes. Or what certain players always try to play (despite our efforts, we have a player who *always* wants to be a Human Samurai. The one from CW. And won't take alternatives. And wants to be Kenshin.)
But Kenshin doesn't even wear armor or wields two weapons!!

AnswersQuestion
2010-12-17, 12:26 PM
I don't hate any race. I dislike some of them for mechanical reasons (damn you elves and your con penalty) and some don't have any real identity(human with permanent blue eye shadow? You can do better than that, Azurin). Some can be silly and others are bizarre... but hate is rather too strong and too uncalled for.

Eloel
2010-12-17, 12:26 PM
Non-drow Elves. Yuck.
Humans. I'm not playing D&D to see humans around, I have RL for that.

grimbold
2010-12-17, 12:28 PM
i love elves and love dwarves and hate orcs when reading fantasy
in an rpg wood elves i hate but i love dwarves and orcs

Zeta Kai
2010-12-17, 12:28 PM
Elves suck.

Dwarves suck.

Halflings suck.

Gnomes suck.

Humans suck.

Orcs suck.

Halfbreeds suck.

Kenders suck.

Kobolds are cool. I'm just sayin'.

The Vorpal Tribble
2010-12-17, 12:29 PM
I never have elves in my games. Can't say as I hate them, but sick to death of them being used as 'hippies of perfection'. To take their place I homebrewed a +0 LA fey-touched.

Guess the race I have my main beef with is Tieflings. I've never played a game where I enjoyed their existence.

Only three ways I 'ever' see them played:

#1. Demon spawn. Cliched to the max.
#2. Emo goths. LIFE IS PAIN BECAUSE I'M PART FIEND!
#3. Sultry slatterns/bad-boys with a heart of gold. They are, like, good guys, but within them burns the FIRES/PASSIONS OF HELL. They will lend you a hand, or seduce you depending on the mood, but cross them and THEY WILL TEAR THE HEART FROM YOUR CHEST AND EAT IT RAW!

Glyde
2010-12-17, 12:31 PM
But Kenshin doesn't even wear armor or wields two weapons!!



Exactly.

It's... Yeah. It's what you think it is.

Marnath
2010-12-17, 12:34 PM
Kender. Seriously, whoever came up with them was not a good writer. People would NOT put up with that sort of BS. If it was real, they'd have changed their ways or gone extinct well before Huma's time, let alone be around post-War of Souls.

hangedman1984
2010-12-17, 12:35 PM
I have a very powerful hatred of every aspect of anything elven. DWARVEN POWER!

You're just jealous of the obvious superiority of the elven race. Poor, bearded lesser being.

AtlanteanTroll
2010-12-17, 12:38 PM
Kobolds. Especially since I don't have RoDr.

I personally love Kender. Not as a PC Race, but Tasslehoff is that fracking amazing.

Psyren
2010-12-17, 12:40 PM
$!@#ing Kender.

While I dislike elves, I don't hate them... just mild annoyance.

Dalek-K
2010-12-17, 12:41 PM
Exactly.

It's... Yeah. It's what you think it is.

For a bit of information... Samurai didn't always use two weapons or a katana for that matter... They were masters of jujitsu, bows, and spears... Saying this... I hate how Samurai are always portrayed as two weapon fighters or two handed sword fighters... yuck

Also the person who decided that Ninjas will have magic or ki abilities was a dumb #%$

I also hate when someone will make a half-halfling half dwarf race... seriously what the hell?

Hat-Trick
2010-12-17, 12:42 PM
I also hate when someone will make a half-halfling half dwarf race... seriously what the hell?

Gnome? I think you mean Gnome.

AnswersQuestion
2010-12-17, 12:43 PM
I never have elves in my games. Can't say as I hate them, but sick to death of them being used as 'hippies of perfection'. To take their place I homebrewed a +0 LA fey-touched.

Wanna stop them being perfect hippies? Simple, kill them all. Have an army destroy all elven lands and turn the few survivors into pariahs that everyone hates. This way you can have them replace the tieflings on the emo field.

Dalek-K
2010-12-17, 12:44 PM
Gnome? I think you mean Gnome.

No, the half-halfling-half centaur-half elf type of character design where they put templates or whatever they are called in 3.5 onto their character...

smellie_hippie
2010-12-17, 12:45 PM
Drow.

Maybe it's from everyone overplaying them after R A Slavatore... but ever since them damn books you can't find anyoen who asks to play a Drow without the assumption being made.

You know... maybe the resentement is a little old, but it still lasts.

Kylarra
2010-12-17, 12:45 PM
I dislike Drow and Kender as PC races.

The Vorpal Tribble
2010-12-17, 12:45 PM
Once upon a time on another set of forums, there was a sort of half-joke/half-serious discussion about halflings and one guy was saying he hates them because he finds art of halfling women 'disturbingly attractive'.

Something like, "I like petite women, but this is a whole 'nother ballgame. I look at them in their revealing fantasy clothing and feel like some kind of pedo who also happens to like boobs."

Nanoblack
2010-12-17, 12:49 PM
You're just jealous of the obvious superiority of the elven race. Poor, bearded lesser being.

There's no way one of your scrawny twiglings could hope to go toe to toe against the Great Bearded Race:http://gizmopolis.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/wow-dwarf-model-700.jpg
http://i55.tinypic.com/25gt8co.jpg

Besides if they are truly as great as you claim, why don't they have a game as awesome as Dwarf Fortress?

Dalek-K
2010-12-17, 12:50 PM
Once upon a time on another set of forums, there was a sort of half-joke/half-serious discussion about halflings and one guy was saying he hates them because he finds art of halfling women 'disturbingly attractive'.

Something like, "I like petite women, but this is a whole 'nother ballgame. I look at them in their revealing fantasy clothing and feel like some kind of pedo who also happens to like boobs."

I think I know that person in real life or maybe a relative of his >.>

Drow is another one I've come to despise because of how they are played... I had one once... LG Paladin Drow... Great back story with it to (involving elves and communication errors)

Coplantor
2010-12-17, 12:51 PM
I have little dislike for halflings, when homebrewing, it is ussually the last of the core races I include in a custom setting, if I do at all. I do like, however, the Dark Sun Halflings, those were awesome.

Dalek-K
2010-12-17, 12:52 PM
Funny enough I just realized I'm a halfling in the playground :(


NOOOOO

Winter_Wolf
2010-12-17, 12:54 PM
Once upon a time on another set of forums, there was a sort of half-joke/half-serious discussion about halflings and one guy was saying he hates them because he finds art of halfling women 'disturbingly attractive'.

Something like, "I like petite women, but this is a whole 'nother ballgame. I look at them in their revealing fantasy clothing and feel like some kind of pedo who also happens to like boobs."

That's funny and disturbing.

I hate kender. If you strip away plot armor, they'd have all been exterminated shortly after they'd been created. To put it in perspective, I like gully dwarves more. And I'm talking the 1st ed. AD&D gully dwarves, you know the ones that had a maximum of 9 on any given score, and rolled most stats with one or two d4.

Also not a gnome person, but of all fantasy races, kender are the type that would make me genocidal.

Dsurion
2010-12-17, 12:55 PM
*Grumble* Goddamned tree hugging elves ... *grumblegrumblebumble* I point you to Eldariel's "guide to being Bane" for prime examples of prissy elves.
This. Elves in general bother the hell out of me, unless they're Fey or Elder Scrolls mer.

AtlanteanTroll
2010-12-17, 12:56 PM
I have little dislike for halflings, when homebrewing, it is ussually the last of the core races I include in a custom setting, if I do at all. I do like, however, the Dark Sun Halflings, those were awesome.

Coplantor trusted ally, friend, acquaintance, absolute stranger, we all know those are 2 different races.

ITS A CONSPIRACY I TELL YAH!

Mordokai
2010-12-17, 12:58 PM
Besides if they are truly as great as you claim, why don't they have a game as awesome as Dwarf Fortress?

This is the game where dwarves are dying in troves, right? :smalltongue:

Personally, I have a great deal of dislike for short races. Halflings and gnomes fit in there perfectly, but I'm also not a big fan od dwarves.

Coplantor
2010-12-17, 12:59 PM
Well, they exist in two different settings, followed different evolutionary processes and one of them inhabits an issolated plane, so I guess thath yeah, they are different races who just happen to look the same.

By the way, I always liked dwarves and for some reason, I started hating the warforged but grew to like them.

Tengu_temp
2010-12-17, 12:59 PM
Drow. Never seen one that didn't fall under one or more of these cliches:

1. Chaotic good Drizzt clone.
2. Backstabbing ******* waiting to betray the party under the excuse of "that's how I roleplay my character".
3. Dominatrix-like female character played by a male player who thinks it's hot.

Dalek-K
2010-12-17, 01:00 PM
Flying races


Seriously what DM is crazy enough to allow that?

I once saw a player that had an elf race that had wings (forgot their names) in a gestalt game...

Dungeon Crasher Fighter Build/ Mailman Sorcerer

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-12-17, 01:00 PM
I never have elves in my games. Can't say as I hate them, but sick to death of them being used as 'hippies of perfection'. To take their place I homebrewed a +0 LA fey-touched.

Guess the race I have my main beef with is Tieflings. I've never played a game where I enjoyed their existence.

Only three ways I 'ever' see them played:

#1. Demon spawn. Cliched to the max.
#2. Emo goths. LIFE IS PAIN BECAUSE I'M PART FIEND!
#3. Sultry slatterns/bad-boys with a heart of gold. They are, like, good guys, but within them burns the FIRES OF HELL. They will lend you a hand, or seduce you depending on the mood, but cross them and THEY WILL TEAR THE HEART FROM YOUR CHEST AND EAT IT RAW!

Interesting. I'm playing a tiefling who doesn't really fit into any of those categories. Sure he's suffered, but he tries not to let it bother him and is a good person. Prefers to heal rather than harm. Cleric of a good god, yanno? Then again, tieflings in the setting I'm playing in aren't so much "unholy abominations" as much as "filthy slave people."

Terraoblivion
2010-12-17, 01:01 PM
To be completely honest, i generally find all the classic fantasy races to be extremely dull and all the weird races added for...who knows the reason, even worse. They tend to come off in one of two ways, either as very flat, boring characters or simply funny looking humans. Of the two i prefer the latter, but if that's what you wanted why add non-human races in the first place?

This is not to say that non-human species can't be done well, but it requires a lot of effort in the world building stage. You need to work on what truly separates them from humans beyond superficial elements of physiology. You need to work on cultural, physical and metaphysical ways they are truly different from humans. Any non-human race needs to justify its existence as independent beings and not just another human culture. In general the classic fantasy races fail at this and even attempts to change that tend to fail since the stereotypes are so strong and so endemic.

So the way i will put it is this. I hate every fantasy race where there hasn't been made substantial effort in working out their exact role and what makes them unique. I would also say that they have to be unique in a way that allows substantial diversity among characters, but that cuts out a lot of interesting concepts of races based on their uniformity, eerie similarity to each other and so forth.

I guess that to be fair, i should also say that i enjoy good parodies on the races, such as the poor bastards living in Dwarf Fortress.

Mordokai
2010-12-17, 01:03 PM
Flying races


Seriously what DM is crazy enough to allow that?

I once saw a player that had an elf race that had wings (forgot their names) in a gestalt game...

Dungeon Crasher Fighter Build/ Mailman Sorcerer

Avariel? (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Avariel) Ten signs.

true_shinken
2010-12-17, 01:05 PM
The whole abuse around kobolds bores me to the point I don't use them in my games, they are not part of my world and I wouldn't play in a game in which some other guy was playing a kobolds.
So you could say I hate'em, I believe.

Kobold-Bard
2010-12-17, 01:06 PM
Flying races


Seriously what DM is crazy enough to allow that?

I once saw a player that had an elf race that had wings (forgot their names) in a gestalt game...

Dungeon Crasher Fighter Build/ Mailman Sorcerer

Avarial Elves (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Avariel).

I have no problem with flying races if their flight is based on Raptoran scaling.

Coplantor
2010-12-17, 01:07 PM
I've been a kobold lover since second edition. They had a niffty ability that made the enemies attack the kobold last unless he showed some superior combat maneuvers, was a magic user or revealed to be a greater threat.

Kobold-Bard
2010-12-17, 01:07 PM
Avariel? (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Avariel) Ten signs.

Goddamn "Server is too Busy" message. I do not acknowledge this as a real swordsaging, no kudos for you.

The Vorpal Tribble
2010-12-17, 01:08 PM
That's funny and disturbing.
Yeah, but you can kinda see what he's getting at.

Ran across this the other day and I'm thinking, "Ok... are you seriously supposed to be a cute lil halfling badass or is your Daddy going to get mad when he finds out that you're playing with his warhammer? "
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2009/364/9/4/Dwarf_by_vielmond.png

Alrox
2010-12-17, 01:09 PM
Wanna stop them being perfect hippies? Simple, kill them all. Have an army destroy all elven lands and turn the few survivors into pariahs that everyone hates. This way you can have them replace the tieflings on the emo field.

I cannot stand elves. Oddly enough, in a campaign I played, our orc monk got promoted to warchief of a large orcish army... We DID kill all of the elves... All the ones above ground anyway...

Stupid smarmy, flighty, knowitall, bow wielding, not man enough to fight you face to face, fragile little elves...

Hat-Trick
2010-12-17, 01:10 PM
I've conceived concepts for drow and tiefling that don't fit those lists.

The Drow is a Bard Dragon disciple who, while CG I'll admit, is no Drizzt as he travels from underdark to surface to run an underground railroad (lol) and puts on the facade of being a typical cruel, sadistic, and backstabbing bastard around his own kind.

The Tiefling was raised by his half-fiend father with his tiefling siblings, but just didn't like eating babies, so he left and joined the other races, fighting prejudice against him by changing his name from Raven BloodTerror to Hanz Van Flump, the Laughing sword, a mercenary and comedian.

On topic a bit more, not much of an elf person. Just not my thing for the most part, although I'll play them for one concept or another.

Callos_DeTerran
2010-12-17, 01:11 PM
Elves, when portrayed in the 'hippies of perfection' way they tend to do, earn nothing from my characters but scorn, rage, and (depending on the character) steely death...preferably right up their smug, skyward-pointing noses while they brag about the superiority of their magic.

Morithias
2010-12-17, 01:13 PM
Step 1: Take a fantasy race
Step 2: Play it in either a cliche or jerkass manner.
Step 3: I hate you.

I can't really hate any races as a whole as I've seen pretty much ever race in the dnd books played both right and wrong at different points. Pretty much the only races I can't really stand are the arrogant ones.

"Look buddy, we're both wizards and have the same amount and level of spells per day. Stop going on and on about how you're better than me cause you're a gray elf, for all purposes we're pretty much the same person power wise."

Needless to say my one player learned quickly people don't like being call inferior. Was traveling with an NPC female barbarian. Called her stupid and basically gave her a whole lecture about how he was better.

Needless to say I was quick to point out the next morning to the party how the player never actually said he cast the alarm spell so the coup-de-grace was legit.

To put it bluntly, if you're a jerk I hate your character, and will do everything in my power to make sure the NPC's you insult pay you back. That's how it works in reality.

Emmerask
2010-12-17, 01:17 PM
I really really really dislike warforged

No "robots" in my d&d campaigns you can play such things in scifi rpgs, thx

TheCIASentMe
2010-12-17, 01:18 PM
Half-Dragons, Dragonborn, and the other "We've shoved dragon into this for no good reason"

Dragons are awesome but not when EVERYTHING is related to dragons. They need to be RARE in order to keep inspiring awe.

To counter the previous post: Warforged are awesome. The concept, the portrayal and the mechanics are all new(ish) and invigorating to the Eberron setting.

AnswersQuestion
2010-12-17, 01:19 PM
I really really really dislike warforged

No "robots" in my d&d campaigns you can play such things in scifi rpgs, thx

I take it you hate golems too.

The Vorpal Tribble
2010-12-17, 01:22 PM
I take it you hate golems too.
Yeah, they are mentioned thousands of years ago. Humanoid constructions without actual life are just as much a part of fantasy as any dragon or elf.

Gelscressor
2010-12-17, 01:22 PM
Elves. Especially ''standard'' elves (ancient civilisation, high magic, et etcetera).
Halflings to a lesser extent. Or specifically, 3e halflings; 2e style(aka Tolkien Hobbits) are okay. But this also very much has to do with mechanics, as really; look at a halfling's physique...why does the race only get a -2 strength penalty?

The Vorpal Tribble
2010-12-17, 01:25 PM
But this also very much has to do with mechanics, as really; look at a halfling's physique...why does the race only get a -2 strength penalty?
Well, look at your average chimpanzee. Not much bigger than a halfling, but several times strong than a human in many ways.

They're probably just very, very compact with monkey muscle.

Bonecrusher Doc
2010-12-17, 01:26 PM
Gnomes as described in PHB, and Kender. I guess you could say silliness annoys me.

Warforged - I agree, belong in SciFi, not Fantasy.

Kobold-Bard
2010-12-17, 01:27 PM
Well, look at your average chimpanzee. Not much bigger than a halfling, but several times strong than a human in many ways.

They're probably just very, very compact with monkey muscle.

Monkey muscle and big boobs. My views of halflings have been warped by this thread (still don't like them).

Nanoblack
2010-12-17, 01:27 PM
This is the game where dwarves are dying in troves, right? :smalltongue:


No! This is the game where:http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/4482826419_b27bbcb2ee_o.jpg You kill wolves by throwing cougar corpses at them! :smallcool:

FoE
2010-12-17, 01:30 PM
Kender. Not halflings, but kender specifically.

Ichneumon
2010-12-17, 01:31 PM
I don't really HATE any of the official published races and will allow most of them in my game when a players shows any interest in playing one, but personally halflings don't really interest me and in all of my homebrew campaigns they're almost non-existent. I don't HATE them, just don't love them. Same is true for dragonborn (4e) and goliath.

Grelna the Blue
2010-12-17, 01:32 PM
I dislike elves as they are normally portrayed. I loved the "hippies of perfection" comment above. That nails it for many games, while in other games I've seen them portrayed as minor gods, which is equally annoying.

I do place elves in my game, but they are usually an NPC race--devious immortals with disturbingly inhuman motivations whose stated word is their absolute bond but with standards of good and evil that are decidely skewed from the human perspective and whose relationship with humanity is frequently adversarial. Players entering my game for the first time are strongly discouraged from playing elf characters because I don't want "hippies of perfection" or snotty humans with pointy ears and prefer players to see elves in context before playing one.

Drow. Bleh. I could enjoy playing in a game with drow that were more than cardboard cutouts, but they're generally pretty boring. Seemingly far more powerful than their surface cousins and seemingly incapable of making that actually matter. They're nonexistent in my game, although I do have a race of underground humans that I use to fill the same niche.

I don't allow halflings at all because if they are Tolkienesque they belong in Middle Earth (and I don't run a MERP campaign) and if they are not they have no basis in fantasy. Want to be short and often annoying? You can play a gnome (and I only include them so there's something for the people that want to be short and often annoying).

Finally, for me as a GM anything more monstrous than a half-ogre is outside the zone for PC creation. I'm not knocking the games where anything goes. A lot of them sound like great fun. They're just not the kind of games I want to run.

DisgruntledDM
2010-12-17, 01:34 PM
Halflings. What the hell? Are halflings AND gnomes really necessary in the same system? It just seems redundant to me. I guess I could say the same about gnomes, but they seem more classic to me, so they get a pass.


Agree with you about gnomes.

Warforged can go to hell.

Also, while we're on the subject, I despise ewoks and gungans.

Dalek-K
2010-12-17, 01:34 PM
Gnomes as described in PHB, and Kender. I guess you could say silliness annoys me.

Warforged - I agree, belong in SciFi, not Fantasy.


You people do realize that Sci-Fi IS FANTASY

*sigh*

Someone on another thread thought dragons should belong in sci-fi cause they didn't fit into fantasy >.>

anyways...
I give halflings SOME credit though... They make good projectile barbarians :D

10 Raging Barbarian Halflings are nothing to scoff at XD Specially when being thrown by another player :D

TechnoScrabble
2010-12-17, 01:37 PM
I hate high elves.
I like the other elf races, if they aren't all snooty. For instance, wild elves? They need to be WILD.
Dwarves are awesome.
Gnomes and kender? Awesome.
Halflings? Don't seem the adventuring type. But pretty cool.
Half elves are used as emos too much. But if used right, cool.
Most of the non-core races are cheese. But some are cool.
And I don't see how orcs, a race that sees women as an item and kill the ones that cannot please their husbands, have no attractive women.

Drakonzeta
2010-12-17, 01:39 PM
Why does everyone hate elves...
But, I hate the following:
Humans
Dwarves
Halflings
Gnomes
ORCS!
Not so much hate nonorcs, but generally dislike them. And actually, in the Gray Elf example, the Gray elf will have 2 more dexterity and intellegence, and 2 less constitution and strength. For dwarf fans: Let's see how your beard stands up to a longsword across the chin, hmmm?

Christopher K.
2010-12-17, 01:40 PM
I hate elves and their variations, except the Dark Sun version of elves. I don't like Drow AT ALL, and I pretty much despise Eladrin except for that darn-amazing Fey Step. While I'm on board with hating things today, how about those dang Dragonborn?

WinceRind
2010-12-17, 01:42 PM
I don't think I hate any races.

Although some of the more nonsensical ones irk me sometimes. But considering the need for growth in games like D&D, it's fairly reasonable to expect a lot of badly thought out content.

I can't think of a specific player race in D&D that I'd dislike for some reason.

And what's with all the halfling hate? Halfling are totally different from gnomes, and they're just this much more awesome.

Kobold-Bard
2010-12-17, 01:43 PM
...

And what's with all the halfling hate? Halfling are totally different from gnomes, and they're just this much more awesome.

What's the point of them?

WarKitty
2010-12-17, 01:43 PM
Drow. Mainly because I dislike the overt matriarchy that has absolutely no parallel in any other elven races.


I never have elves in my games. Can't say as I hate them, but sick to death of them being used as 'hippies of perfection'. To take their place I homebrewed a +0 LA fey-touched.

Guess the race I have my main beef with is Tieflings. I've never played a game where I enjoyed their existence.

Only three ways I 'ever' see them played:

#1. Demon spawn. Cliched to the max.
#2. Emo goths. LIFE IS PAIN BECAUSE I'M PART FIEND!
#3. Sultry slatterns/bad-boys with a heart of gold. They are, like, good guys, but within them burns the FIRES/PASSIONS OF HELL. They will lend you a hand, or seduce you depending on the mood, but cross them and THEY WILL TEAR THE HEART FROM YOUR CHEST AND EAT IT RAW!

We have a CG tiefling who started out with absolutely no idea he was half-demon. Thought he was just under some sort of weird curse or something. Mommy didn't want to mention that she'd slept with a demon... Great times.

Denomar
2010-12-17, 01:47 PM
as a fan of Tolkien I like halflings and believe they're totally deserving of their part in D&D.

On the other hand I don't think Kender make a very good player race, Kleptomania is a good way to produce frustration at the gaming table so I've never run a game in Dragonlance.

I don't actively hate any fantasy race, I do however hate it when I tell my players "Ok, so I'm starting up a campaign in a homebrewed world I'd like you to try and make up characters that are Big Heroes. This aims to go into a sprawling epic world but does draw some inspiration from the old Incursion campaign from Dungeon Magazine. Start at level 10"

Then I'll have a player go, "Oh cool, can I play a Half Minotaur Ghoul?" and they always seem surprised when I tell them that they're getting shot on sight because most normal people are TERRIFIED of them and have plenty of justification. I don't really like playing monsters frankly. I also don't like when people try to play the most antisocial types of monsters possible and pass them off for a mostly good campaign.

also the half templates can be pretty silly. For example Half Celestial Dragonborn Trollblooded Water Orc is pretty *bleeping* stupid.

Mr.Bookworm
2010-12-17, 01:49 PM
Elves suck.

Dwarves suck.

Halflings suck.

Gnomes suck.

Humans suck.

Orcs suck.

Halfbreeds suck.

Kenders suck.

Kobolds are cool. I'm just sayin'.

I used to think pretty much this until I read Eberron, and that particular, cool version of the races got firmly imprinted onto my brain.

Now all of my halflings are dino-riding nomads, my elves are either Mongol hordes or undead ancestor-worshippers, my orcs are ancient druids who kicked Cthulhu in the balls a million years ago, my gnomes are spymasters who know where you live, my dwarves are clannish merchant bankers, my humans are more generic then ever, and kender still suck.

Though kender fits in the rather large category of subraces or setting-specific races that suck.

Gelscressor
2010-12-17, 01:50 PM
Well, look at your average chimpanzee. Not much bigger than a halfling, but several times strong than a human in many ways.

They're probably just very, very compact with monkey muscle.

Perhaps, but as the race is currently written; their average weight is 30-35 pounds. They aren't just small, they are light weight too. If they were compact, I'd expect them to be just a bit heavier.

Nevertheless...monkey muscle? Hehe. That is a splendid idea, actually. I just might make halflings the close relatives to monkeys in my campaign setting now. Even more than humans :smallamused:.

Dr.Epic
2010-12-17, 01:52 PM
Elves. I don't hate them, but ever since Peter Jackson's LotRs, I feel they've become extremely overrated. Legolas was not a better fighter than Gimli. Gimli killed more orcs than Legolas at Helm's Deep, yet we see him doing crazy combat maneuvers. In D&D terms, they get -2 con which is a problem for pretty much every class as it determines HP.

Blackfang108
2010-12-17, 01:55 PM
Generally, Humans.

With all of the different races out there, I can't really see a reason to play a human.

I have somewhere around 20 played characters, and I only have 2 humans among them. And one is a subtype human (Azurin, I think)

If we get into backup characters, the total climbs to around 40-50 total characters, and still only the two Humans (which are humans for campaign story reasons.)

Stone Heart
2010-12-17, 01:55 PM
What's the point of them?

Well, whats the point of any race?


I don't hate any race in particular, though Githzerai kinda bother me, because a few campaigns where people were just abusing their stat bonuses.

I am slightly annoyed at halflings at the moment, because one campaign I played in recently every player character except me was a halfling, and it got annoying.

Derjuin
2010-12-17, 02:02 PM
Drow. Mainly because I dislike the overt matriarchy that has absolutely no parallel in any other elven races.

The book Drow of the Underdark goes into a lot of detail as to why they have a matiarchy in the way they do when none of the other elves have one; it largely points to Lolth's favor and worship of spiders, in that most female spiders are larger than males, and some eat the male after mating. I think it also draws on giving birth as a sign of being stronger or more durable or something; I'll have to reread it sometime...

While I don't particularly hate any race, I tend to dislike warforged. Not because of their background, but because of their array of defensive stuff. Adamantine platemail at level 1? Immunity to paralysis and poison...:smallyuk: I realize this is tempered by their healing issues, they just need someone with UMD/a wizard/sorcerer and a wand of repair critical damage.

I actually like halflings and gnomes when I see them played, only because I never see people playing them.

AmberVael
2010-12-17, 02:02 PM
1) Dwarves
2) Halflings
3) Those puntable things people call 'Gnomes.'

I hate all the short races. I'm sorry, I just can't take someone half the size of a normal person seriously. Dwarves are better, but it turns out that they are hairy, and I hate that.

Also, Kender can go die in a fire.

Kobold-Bard
2010-12-17, 02:04 PM
Well, whats the point of any race?

...

Well Elves a supernatural hippies/mages/swordsmen/etc.
Dwarves are smiths and burrowers & warriors.
Orcs are savage brutes.
Gnomes are tinkerers and inventers.
Humans are adaptable breeders.

Halflings don't really have their own niche (this fact is even the basis of their creation myth), they're just a bit of everything else, and Humans already do that better than them.

Traveler
2010-12-17, 02:05 PM
Fantasy race I hate... The half cliche template. I see it everywhere!

Other then that... Any elf type aside from the PHB one, because having a dozen (or close to it) different scores for the same thing isn't variety, it's cherry picking. Gnomes, though that might be because I'm a kobold fan (since I read the first monster manual, not RotD). Halflings that act like kender (because halflings can rock if done right). Drow because the half cliche template has infused all of them.

Arbane
2010-12-17, 02:06 PM
Elves. I don't hate them, but ever since Peter Jackson's LotRs, I feel they've become extremely overrated.

They were overrated BEFORE those movies, too. Trust me.


Well, whats the point of any race?

MORE PLUSSES!

Semi-seriously, this IS a good question. Aside from mechanical bonuses, what's the point? Interesting backstory? Real-world human cultures are more varied than most fantasy races ever could be (since we've had 12+ billion people creating them).

While reading through this thread, I found myself wondering what D&D would be like if Tolkien had never gotten published. His books are the one place I can think of in pre-D&D fantasy where you have a team of adventurers who sound like the start of a joke. "So, a Wizard, an Elf, a Dwarf, two Humans and four Hobbits walk into a tavern..."

Mind you, the last long-term D&D game I was in was supposed to be all human characters, but one gal talked the DM into letting her play a Kender. So I'm a bit biased.

Bonecrusher Doc
2010-12-17, 02:08 PM
I just might make halflings the close relatives to monkeys in my campaign setting now.

You might like to base that off the "Jungle Goblin" variant race in the SRD.

Morty
2010-12-17, 02:08 PM
It's rather difficult to say which rate I "hate". It's possible to present every one of them in a good or bad way. But I have to say I do dislike Warforged and Dragonborn(or any other "draconian" race) and I never use them.

Zen Monkey
2010-12-17, 02:25 PM
I don't like any race that cannot participate in both adventuring and roleplaying:

Thri-kreen: Overpowered in combat, but can't talk. Yeah, you're "roleplaying." The only good one I ever saw was afraid of anything female (praying mantis mating at all).

Kender: You screwing over the party for some shiny trinket or having me constantly checking to see where my equipment went is only fun for one person and a hassle for the others.

Halflings (2E): It said in their description that they don't like adventuring and prefer to stay home eating and smoking. This means having one party member that never wants to go anywhere or do anything. Good times.

Obvious monsters, extraplanars, etc. Why isn't your every shopping or tavern trip met by a mob with pitchforks and torches? You're nine feet tall with extra limbs and fangs and a reputation for eating people. Grabbing a beer at the local pub is not normal.

Half-templates, be reasonable. You cannot be a half-dragon, half-celestial orc. That's three things, and there is not 150% of you to fill them. If someone says "I'm half-Irish, half-German, half-Indian, and half-Chinese" you would very reasonably wonder if they're joking or if there is something wrong with them.

Pechvarry
2010-12-17, 02:26 PM
I hate non-human on the basis that it creates a crutch for figuring your personality (even if you're playing the exception to the racial norm), which leads to sweeping generalizations. "Elves are arrogant nature lovers" and "dwarves drink themselves stupid and are proud to the point of exhaustion" and so on.

In a fantasy world, if I want to be a small, acrobatic guy, I have to be a halfling. Or else I'm really not that small and dextrous.

The Wheel of Time books proved you could have all sorts of cultural identity without having to be born one race or another. This focus on upbringing and imprinted societal morals is much stronger than "I'm an elf raised in a human culture, so I'm city-smart but still graceful and aloof."

Thiyr
2010-12-17, 02:26 PM
Really, I don't have much dislike for most races. I do, however, have issues with kobolds. Mostly because I never see any variety. Kobolds are -always- the crazy-prepared super-trapsmith. It's just boring to have a party of 10th level characters not want to go deal with an infestation of kobolds because "They're kobolds!" The stuff in RotD doesn't help matters much. They're annoying little lizards with ego issues and a decent knack for booby traps...but they can do other stuff!

Otherwise, I've seen enough variants on other races used that I'll joke about them but have no real issues.

Yora
2010-12-17, 02:28 PM
KENDER!!! Kender are not a race, they are an insult to everyone who considers fantasy to be anything but a cheap joke. I can say I genuinely hate them.

Not that there's anything wrong with them, but I feel very meh about dwarves. They are just very boring to me, without anything interesting about them.

snoopy13a
2010-12-17, 02:29 PM
I dislike elves. Essentially everything special yet they still are obnoxious and corrupt.

My favorite fantasy species are Tolkien's hobbits. Essentially simple people who enjoy farming, family, eating and drinking. It is something that there were only two (and two is arguable) evil hobbits ever.

The Vorpal Tribble
2010-12-17, 02:29 PM
In my A Dying Ember campaign I refluffed many of the races, without restatting any but the half-orcs.

Humans
Most adaptable and imaginative of all the races. Not smarter in general than anyone else, but can conceive of nearly anything. Stories are their forte, and no one can craft an epic tale like mankind. Music is also their lifeblood to a lesse degree. Nothing can compete with them on sheer making sh*t up.

Almost no one attacks them because when you put their life on the line they get 'creative', and nothing in this world is considered as scary as a ticked off human thinking up new ways they might kill you.

Dwarves
The mortal offspring of a race of outsiders cast down with their mountain from the heavens for refusing to bow down to even their own god. Mountain now roams the world in a partially real, partially spiritual state. Dwarvs that left it became mortal and gained genders (before they literally did spring out of holes in the ground). They are proud, ultimately self-sufficient people who will not rely on anyone but themselves and family. They are tough physically and mentally, who will stand up to Heaven or Hell itself if they feel they are right.

Half-Orcs
In this setting orcs and humans were once the same people. Basically a race of ' great wise apes from the cold mountain forests', a highly intelligent, but unchanging Atlantean-style race had a chieftain who married a nymph, a great seelie matriarch. This union was blessed by the heavens so as to keep dwarves from becoming the chief race, and so they produced the neanderthals. The smarter, prettier ones (proto-humans) who took after their nymph mother became one tribe, and the more brutish, instinct-driven ones (proto-orcs) who took after their father became the other. Proto-humans discovered fire, and drove the half-orcs into the frostfell. Races warred, and in one particular battle many human women were taken.

The result were half-orcs, who were shunned by all. But a great shaman rose up amongst them with a vision of them being their own people.

They became known as the Free Peoples, wild, joyous creatures who shunned the brutality of the orcs and the civilization of the humans. They challenge life and live it as if they were going to die tomorrow, which they may. The refuse to back down out of fear to anything and are risk-takers and dare-devils.

The shaman became a demi-god within the Spirit World and has his own realm that half-orcs that do not fear death go to.

Think adrenaline-junky Klingons mixed with the x-treme sportists

Curmudgeon
2010-12-17, 02:29 PM
Kender.

(Do I need to say more?)

Drakonzeta
2010-12-17, 02:32 PM
Ok... Elf hate is lessening up, thank goodness. Halfling hate is strong, however. And also, we have to keep in mind that everyone has slightly different, if similar, on occasion, views on races. Some people ignore or don't have the books that detail nonhuman society. And for everyone complaining about the half-x templates, they were created probably to juice up monsters, but they had to put a level adjustment in there, or would probably get a lot of flak. So don't complain about the half-x templates.


See also: What the heck is a kender?

gkathellar
2010-12-17, 02:34 PM
I hate any race that doesn't feel genuinely distinct and different from humanity - which means everything in the PHB. There is no excuse for any of them in most cosmology: sure, Tolkein could pull it off because his world was basically built on Nordic and Christian mythology and had a really complicated divine infrastructure that made space for these mostly-humans. And his motivations were less transparently dumb, as he included elves and dwarves because they were from myths he liked, as opposed to including them because the genre of fantasy's creator used them (as is standard practice).

But most fantasy worlds just say "and there are this whole bunch of guys who look mostly like humans, but are jerks or talk in funny accents and live longer than other people." And it makes no sense because they have no thematic, cosmological or internally mythological basis for being there! In fact, the only reason they exist in most fantasy worlds is to play to overused archetypes that can be filled just as easily by humans and human cultures.

At least lizardfolk and minotaurs and giants and other distinctly inhuman races can portray something that humans can't - but elves are just long-lived jerks with inconsistent descriptions and too many subraces, dwarves are just greedy people who live in the mountains, gnomes are a society apparently built on practical jokes and dumb ideas, orcs are just token bad guys who can be killed without moral demand or justification, and no one even knows what halflings are because they don't have a distinct culture in any way, shape or form.

Rolaran
2010-12-17, 02:38 PM
I don't really dislike any race, provided I've accounted for them being in the campaign world. What bugs me is when someone finds a race they want to play, then demands that I shoehorn it into the campaign world. I've had this happen twice, which is weird, because I take the fantasy kitchen sink approach to world-building and throw in every race I can think of.

"OK, if they want to play halflings, here's the island where halflings have built a bustling mercantile society. If they want to play kobolds, here's the Hawaii-esque volcanic archipelago where they live. If they want to play gnomes, but decide they prefer Warcraft tech-obsessed gnomes to the sneaky earth-fey flavor, here's the mountain range where the "grey gnomes" have built a pseudo-steampunk fortress. Which also conveniently provides an origin for the warforged. I think I have covered every race anyone could conceivably want to play."
(player runs in, holding some random 3rd-party book) "I want to play a silicon giant!"
"...what."

Also irritating are the people who decide that a race behaves a specific way, and ignore the DM's repeated explanation that in this world, that doesn't apply.

"I'm playing a tiefling so that my character will be a mysterious loner who intimidates people with his horrifying appearance!"
"OK, here's the campaign map. This is the city-state that's more or less entirely tieflings. It's two days' ride from where you're starting out. These guys see tiefling ambassadors on a daily basis."
One session later: "The captain of the guard isn't threatened? Well, I pull down my hood so he can see that I am... a tiefling! Is he scared? Huh?"

And of course, worst of all is when the two of these coincide.

"I yell in rage at the sight of the wizard! I can never forget how his filthy kind have exploited the silicon giantfolk!"
"For the last time, in this campaign world, wizards never enslaved the 'silicon giants' and built a continent-spanning empire on their backs. That's something specific to the sourcebook you found them in. I didn't use it."
"But my backstory is all based around that! My character is a refugee from the Imperium of Tyrannum Magicus! Isn't there room for you to slip a Russia-sized nation of slave-owning mages into your campaign world? And also seamlessly integrate it into global politics and history so my character isn't out of place?"

PersonMan
2010-12-17, 02:38 PM
See also: What the heck is a kender?

Kender are basically tiny people who steal stuff all the time, from Dragonlance.

Dr.Epic
2010-12-17, 02:40 PM
They were overrated BEFORE those movies, too. Trust me.

Yeah, but t(w)een girls didn't obsess about them before because Orlando Bloom played one. I swear, just about everything that was once badass becomes a lot lamer once t(w)een girls start obsessing about them:

-elves
-pirates
-vampires
-werewolves

Marillion
2010-12-17, 02:41 PM
I love elves.

Or rather, I love moments like this (http://www.nuklearpower.com/2006/04/04/episode-681-of-civilizations/) made possible by elves.

Gullintanni
2010-12-17, 02:41 PM
I don't like any race outside of core that gets optimized to the point of cheese. Race should be the starting point for a flavourful character, but too many simply end up being hollowed out for power.

Kobolds have amazing writing potential as trap masters, for example. The sole apparent reason for Desert or Jungle kobolds on the other hand appears to provide another springboard for char-op.

On a side note, Kobolds, Gnomes, and Dwarves are awesome. Gnomes if only for their potential as skeletal dragon riding necromancer clerics named Scrambles.

Yora
2010-12-17, 02:44 PM
Kender are basically tiny people who steal stuff all the time, from Dragonlance.
They are supposed to be a comic relief race, but their fluff is really just "annoy your fellow party members and make life for them as hard as possible". If you play them the way they are written, you really only make the game less fun for everyone else.

Drakonzeta
2010-12-17, 02:47 PM
Ironic that everyone is turning noses on races based on stereotypes. I hate orcs because they kill large amounts of elves, my favorite race (Second only to dragons, actually) . Some people hate elves because the stereotype for them are prissy magi-folk. Where I'm from, elves coexist with humans and are rangers or druids more often then wizards. None of the perfectionist stuff either. However, different DMs portray different races in different ways. I once had an campaign where the party was entirely nonhuman, so I decided to make humans the eat-every-other-race-in-existence bad guys. It depends on the person, and the stereotypes of YOUR gaming group.

Coidzor
2010-12-17, 02:49 PM
^: So you made humans true to life, eh? :smallamused: Nom nom nom. :smallbiggrin:
See also: What the heck is a kender?

The most hateable monster of all D&D history.

Sir_Chivalry
2010-12-17, 02:52 PM
I have to agree on several points said in the thread (that a race isn't really that great unless it is different from human more than cosmetically, that halflings have less individuality race-wise than gnomes (darn you WotC for getting that backwards with 4th ed!), and a few other things) but this isn't about my agreements, it's about which race I hate. Well, none of them, but here's my stance:


With all of the different races out there, I can't really see a reason to play a human.

With all of the different races out there, I can't really see a reason not to play a human. Because, let's face it, the other races are not humans. As written in core, they're human wanna-bes, the dwarf is a short human who lives underground, likes ale and has a bushy beard. There should be no mistake about who is who in a fantasy world. A short human with a beard who likes ale and wears platemail and swings an axe should not be mistaken for a dwarf, the dwarf needs to be different. Cosmetic things are a good start, but the key is how the character is played. A dwarf raised in dwarf society should hold different views and different values from any human (an issue I have with the alignment system, since it seems to be informed mainly on the basis of human morals and ethics)

Most of the characters I play are human, most of the villains I run are human. The few times I play other races, I make them quite different from humans. An elven warrior the PCs met in my game didn't look down on them or act like he was in constant communion with nature. But he never touched them, and when he shared his food he put it in a bag first and threw it to them over the firepit he had made. Elves in my world consider physical contact sacred. To touch someone is to let your spirits connect briefly. It was a matter of them being unclean to his eyes, but more a matter of his long life possibly inversly affecting others who weren't elven.

That being said, I love Eberron's take on the races, and have integrated many parts of them into my world.

Drakonzeta
2010-12-17, 02:52 PM
^: So you made humans true to life, eh? :smallamused: Nom nom nom. :smallbiggrin:.

I guess... (Shield of vegetarianism!)

Asta Kask
2010-12-17, 02:53 PM
I don't hate Kender in the Dragonlance books, but I cannot see a way to play them that either a) wouldn't violate the racial concept, or b) be intensely annoying. No. Just say no to Kender.

Yukitsu
2010-12-17, 02:55 PM
Kender make me want to retire my current character, switch to a paladin with exalted feats, then immediately fall, just so I can murder it.

Gelscressor
2010-12-17, 02:59 PM
Also, I'd have to add humans.

That is, not the race itself and its not so much hate as a bit of dislike, but I dislike how humans are the dominant race in a lot of campaign settings. Often by a large margin, at that.

Tyndmyr
2010-12-17, 03:02 PM
Kender.

Yes, theives, which people inexplicably like? It's terrible. I hate them with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.

CockroachTeaParty
2010-12-17, 03:07 PM
I hate cat folk. Actually, any anthropomorphic race gets on my nerves, but I especially hate cat folk.

Drakonzeta
2010-12-17, 03:12 PM
Another thing that bugs me: Why are tieflings and the like always on humans? Is it not possible for a half-celestial dwarf to reproduce?

Erom
2010-12-17, 03:21 PM
Other than Kender who I truly hate, my only problem is when races overlap.

It seems like you could pick one from halfling, dwarf, gnome, goblin, and kobold to include in your world, and you would be good.

Same with Goliath, Orc, Half-Orc, Gnoll, Bugbear, Hobgoblin, Dragonborn and Minotaur.

Same with Drow and Tiefling. Pick one.

Same with Elf, Half-Elf, Eladrin, and all the other Foo-Elves.

So usually the only races that exist in a world when I design it is "whatever races my players took, plus probably warforged because I <3 them".

Tokuhara
2010-12-17, 03:22 PM
Humans and most human subtyped races aren't on my "must-play" list, because they're boring. The ONLY exception is the Orc-Human thing with LA. So cool

The stone people from Races of Stone. Mostly because in almost any environment are unplayable

98% of Halfling races. I only like Strongheart and Tallfellow. Lots of roleplay flavor. Plus, Tallfellows look like Keibler elves!

Gnomes. This stems from a BBEG we faced who was a Fricken Gnome Illusionist. Jerk...

Aasimar. Too "Goody-two-shoes"

Changelings. Ultimate spy? plz...


races I love:

Dwarves. Mostly thanks to Dragon Age
Elves (to a certain degree). Usually reserved for my Nature-themed PCs
Tielfing. Great backstory, and loads of flavor
Shifters. I mean come on... Imma Werewolf, but actually playable?!
Elan. Weird aloof peeps with an ego problem. Cool stuff
Dromites. A race I'd play mor eif it didn't have 1LA
Hobgoblin. The awesome dexterity of a Goblin with the leadership qualities of an Orc chieftan.

WarKitty
2010-12-17, 03:26 PM
The book Drow of the Underdark goes into a lot of detail as to why they have a matiarchy in the way they do when none of the other elves have one; it largely points to Lolth's favor and worship of spiders, in that most female spiders are larger than males, and some eat the male after mating. I think it also draws on giving birth as a sign of being stronger or more durable or something; I'll have to reread it sometime...


I'd probably like it more if there was an explicitly matriarchal good race among the stuff everyone plays. As it stands, most of the time it comes across as "women in leadership are evil!" in what I've seen.


Also, I'd have to add humans.

That is, not the race itself and its not so much hate as a bit of dislike, but I dislike how humans are the dominant race in a lot of campaign settings. Often by a large margin, at that.

Oddly, I agree here. Plus, in a setting where every race has a distinct personality and flavor, humans seem so bland.

Yora
2010-12-17, 03:34 PM
I'd probably like it more if there was an explicitly matriarchal good race among the stuff everyone plays. As it stands, most of the time it comes across as "women in leadership are evil!" in what I've seen.
I think distinctly patriarchal societies also usually end up as bad guys. Most of current fantasy really doesn't bother about gender roles. If any society discriminates for anything, they are usually bad.

The Big Dice
2010-12-17, 03:35 PM
I despise most D&D races. Simply because they are dull collections of racial features, not representing any kind of culture in the slightest. There's really nothing to differentiate humans, elves, dwarves, halflings et al from each other apart from the game mechanics. And that's just dull.

Yora
2010-12-17, 03:40 PM
I think what almost anyone here hates is really just bad writing. Some people take a basic and simple idea, and don't do anything with it and turning it into a stupid stereotype.

Except Kender of course. They are a stupid idea to begin with. :smallbiggrin:

KillItWithFire
2010-12-17, 03:40 PM
I despise most D&D races. Simply because they are dull collections of racial features, not representing any kind of culture in the slightest. There's really nothing to differentiate humans, elves, dwarves, halflings et al from each other apart from the game mechanics. And that's just dull.

Really? Pick up some supplement books the. For instance races of stone. I looked into it when I started making my first gnome char. Gnomes love art so their occupations revolve around artisans. Most all gnomes can cast magic but studying magic for magics sake as opposed to create a greater work is frowned upon. The book also described gnome cerimonies such as weddings or funerals and also described how they handle military affairs. Worst comes to worst, let your DM make their culture but you can't just arbitraily decide that the races have no culture based on their descriptions in the players handbook. The thing is long enough as it is and it's sole purpose is to get you ready to play, not to be an elven diplomat investigating dwarf society.

SamL
2010-12-17, 03:42 PM
I posted halflings towards the beginning of this thread, but I wasn't even thinking about the damned 4th ed races. Halflings I somewhat dislike. I freaking despise dragonborn, tieflings, those damned überelves, whatever they're called. Anything like that and beyond.

Basically, I hate it when someone's race becomes more important to their character than their class. If you're a fire-breathing lizard, a giant-sized monster or a shapeshifter, it doesn't matter if you're a fighter, a rogue or a wizard. that's your thing. Even if they're not on the same page, I prefer all the PCs to at least be reading the same chapter, y'know?

TheThan
2010-12-17, 03:43 PM
I dislike most of the stuff from Ebberon; Shifters, Kalashtar, changlings. Dunno why, they just don’t quite jive with me.

Emperor Ing
2010-12-17, 03:44 PM
Elves. I don't hate them that much, tut they need to stop breeding all these subraces.

Drow. No, not for the same reason as elves. They're emo goths who worship kindergarten halloween decorations in addition to being either drizzt clones, dominatrixes, or being shallow expressionless automatons with spell resistance.

Gnomes. Their diety commits a massacre out of envy and somehow he's still neutral good? Furthermore, what do they have? Even more annoying subraces?

Dr.Epic
2010-12-17, 03:45 PM
Elves. I don't hate them that much, tut they need to stop breeding all these subraces.

I think humans are the better example of a race that will mate with anything and spawn too many subraces.

Emperor Ing
2010-12-17, 03:49 PM
I think humans are the better example of a race that will mate with anything and spawn too many subraces.

The list of elf subraces is HUUUEG!! (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Elf_subraces)

WarKitty
2010-12-17, 03:50 PM
I think distinctly patriarchal societies also usually end up as bad guys. Most of current fantasy really doesn't bother about gender roles. If any society discriminates for anything, they are usually bad.

Might be my book selection. Out of SRD races, Drow are the only ones that have a culture that's listed as being based on sexism afaik.

In general: I like having a truly racially diverse world, instead of a world where there's humans and everyone else. So the different races end up being roughly equivalent to different cultures.

The Big Dice
2010-12-17, 03:56 PM
Really? Pick up some supplement books the. For instance races of stone. I looked into it when I started making my first gnome char. Gnomes love art so their occupations revolve around artisans. Most all gnomes can cast magic but studying magic for magics sake as opposed to create a greater work is frowned upon. The book also described gnome cerimonies such as weddings or funerals and also described how they handle military affairs. Worst comes to worst, let your DM make their culture but you can't just arbitraily decide that the races have no culture based on their descriptions in the players handbook. The thing is long enough as it is and it's sole purpose is to get you ready to play, not to be an elven diplomat investigating dwarf society.
The problem with those kind of race books is, all of Race X end up as part of the same culture. Regardless of geographical location or any other considerations. Why should all dwarves have a thing about giants? Even the PHB humans have a stereotype. "Most humans are the descendants of pioneers, conquerors, traders, travelers, refugees, and other people on the move. As a result, human lands are home to a mix of people—physically, culturally, religiously, and politically different."

So in other words, D&D humans are modern Americans.

And if I can't get a sense of the culture of a race, the thing that sets them apart and makes them unique outside of the mechanics, then there's a problem with the writing of the core book.

Coidzor
2010-12-17, 04:00 PM
I'd probably like it more if there was an explicitly matriarchal good race among the stuff everyone plays. As it stands, most of the time it comes across as "women in leadership are evil!" in what I've seen.

I think someone needs to see the Foglio comic on the matter. Now if only I could find the link.

And humans seem bland because 1. they aren't a racial monoculture so their cultures are left up to the world that the game is being played in rather than in the description of the race itself and 2. they're bogged down by the same constraints of "relatability" that are part of the reason that fighters can't have nice things.


The Wheel of Time books proved you could have all sorts of cultural identity without having to be born one race or another. This focus on upbringing and imprinted societal morals is much stronger than "I'm an elf raised in a human culture, so I'm city-smart but still graceful and aloof."

I'd have to disagree and say that WoT seemed to me to more crank nationalism up to 11 where basically everyone from a single nation = same, distinct race, same culture which is completely different to that of even their close neighbors that they have strong diplomatic ties to and trade with regularly.


Might be my book selection. Out of SRD races, Drow are the only ones that have a culture that's listed as being based on sexism afaik.

In general: I like having a truly racially diverse world, instead of a world where there's humans and everyone else. So the different races end up being roughly equivalent to different cultures.

Orcs are evil wife-beating misogynist patriarchal rapist racists. How did you miss that one? :smallconfused:


I think humans are the better example of a race that will mate with anything and spawn too many subraces.

Humans generally hybridize. Elves have subraces for every outfit and occasion.


And if I can't get a sense of the culture of a race, the thing that sets them apart and makes them unique outside of the mechanics, then there's a problem with the writing of the core book.

Because the core book is generic, anything it says has to be LCD and avoid building up a huge, complex thing that any setting would have to spend extra work in tearing down in addition to the usual suspects. Now, if it was a setting book that dealt with any actual cultures, then your complaint would have more gravitas.

And you can't have it both ways. You can't complain that it doesn't give a mono-culture and then complain when another book gives a monoculture.

Psyren
2010-12-17, 04:04 PM
The problem with those kind of race books is, all of Race X end up as part of the same culture. Regardless of geographical location or any other considerations.

There's little way around that - geographical location is setting-specific. You won't find humans from Thay, Mulhorand or Cormyr in Eberron, after all.

Telasi
2010-12-17, 04:05 PM
Drow. Never seen one that didn't fall under one or more of these cliches:

1. Chaotic good Drizzt clone.
2. Backstabbing ******* waiting to betray the party under the excuse of "that's how I roleplay my character".
3. Dominatrix-like female character played by a male player who thinks it's hot.

I take exception to this, being a drow fan who doesn't play any of those. While I agree that those types of characters (especially the first one) are annoying, it's not the race that's the issue, it's the people playing them.

On the topic at hand, I really dislike 4e Eladrin fluff. I've never really gotten the point of gnomes, though I can't say I hate them, really.

WarKitty
2010-12-17, 04:05 PM
I think someone needs to see the Foglio comic on the matter. Now if only I could find the link.

And humans seem bland because 1. they aren't a racial monoculture so their cultures are left up to the world that the game is being played in rather than in the description of the race itself and 2. they're bogged down by the same constraints of "relatability" that are part of the reason that fighters can't have nice things.



Eh, I'd have to disagree and say that WoT seemed to me to more crank nationalism up to 11 where basically everyone from a single nation = same, distinct race, same culture which is completely different to that of even their close neighbors that they have strong diplomatic ties to and trade with regularly.



Orcs are evil wife-beating misogynist patriarchal rapist racists. How did you miss that one? :smallconfused:



Humans generally hybridize. Elves have subraces for every outfit and occasion.

Huh. Must be a player problem then. I've seen orcs played mostly as the proud warrior race guy, not the misogynist barbarian. Or at the very least, nothing about their home culture comes up that doesn't relate directly to orc warbands. Drow, on the other hand...

SurlySeraph
2010-12-17, 04:06 PM
Gnomes don't matter.
Tinker gnomes are OK. Or would be, if 3.5 had any support for that kind of "YAY SCIENCE!" Which it doesn't.
Gnomes as halfling/ dwarf hybrids are OK, it makes more sense than them existing as an entire race.
Gnome illusionists are kind of OK.
Creepy/ sneaky/ greedy manipulative gnomes can be OK.
Whisper gnomes aren't gnomes, they're a race of midget assassins. The distinctive gnome traits are "good at illusions," "experiments with things," "cheerful, deranged, or both" and "wacky." Whisper gnomes have none of these traits.

I used to like kobolds, but as they shifted from "Hilariously weak," to "Usually hilariously weak, with terrifying and unexpected exceptions" to "Midget dragons who are better than you," I lost interest.

Actually, I hate most dragon-related races. They just aren't very interesting, and there are far too many of them. I don't find dragons interesting, much less a race whose entire shtick is "Kinda dragon-ish." And having tons of dragon-descended things just cheapens dragons; there's no mystique if the reclusive hyperintelligent apex predator leaves tons of babies all over the place. Silverbrow Humans, Spellscales, and the like are sometimes acceptable if you ignore the annoying fluff they get and just treat them like dragon-y planetouched, half-dragons are sometimes acceptable, screw the rest.


Another thing that bugs me: Why are tieflings and the like always on humans? Is it not possible for a half-celestial dwarf to reproduce?

There are a few "others," like Wisplings and Fey'ri (tiefling halflings and elves), though not many. Probably because more people will want to play races that are more human-like, though the commonness of humans as a good in-world explanation.

GenericGuy
2010-12-17, 04:11 PM
I actually love to hate elves, nothing is more satisfying than having those sanctimonious jerk’s Empire collapse around them and turning them into a homeless pariah race dependent on the very Humans they so despised.

Races I really do hate are any and all sub-races, It just makes a race even more two-dimensional.

Coidzor
2010-12-17, 04:16 PM
Huh. Must be a player problem then. I've seen orcs played mostly as the proud warrior race guy, not the misogynist barbarian. Or at the very least, nothing about their home culture comes up that doesn't relate directly to orc warbands. Drow, on the other hand...

Because who wants to make themselves look like a misogynist by playing a misogynist stereotype in the company and presence of a woman or women? :smallwink:

The proud warrior race guy that Warcraft added into the mix somewhere in D&D 3e's development is, after all, a lot more palatable. And what else but a patriarchy would get rid of the young men by sending them out on nigh-suicidal errands of raiding so that the older men can monopolize the womenfolk?

Darklord Bright
2010-12-17, 04:18 PM
I don't hate the fantasy races themselves, I hate that in every setting that there is nothing unique about their culture. They are just humans with a different "Skin" who's entire culture is built upon a single stereotype. They're bland and uninteresting - and humans may be 'boring' in terms of appearance, but at least they almost always have a unique personality. I'd rather play with 4 human party members who all had unique backstories and characters than:

The arrogant thin-guy keeper of the balance.
The scotsman battle-hungry short-guy.
The short-guy who steals things.
The Hulk.

It's just all so insipid.

That said, when someone plays them well? I'll enjoy it. It's the character I like - the appearance just gives me something interesting to draw. I still have a fondness for elves-raised-as-dwarves because they laugh in the face of stereotypes whilst still being one.

Also, ever since dwarf fortress, my world's dwarves are always casual lunatics who beat goblins to death with their own severed legs and think that lava-based defense systems in their mountainhomes are subtle.

WarKitty
2010-12-17, 04:19 PM
Because who wants to make themselves look like a misogynist by playing a misogynist stereotype in the company and presence of a woman or women? :smalltongue:

Oddly, that never stops them from playing out Drow-based misogynist stereotypes.

littlekKID
2010-12-17, 04:21 PM
Kender are basically tiny people who steal stuff all the time, from Dragonlance.

So it's all the bad ways that people play Halfling rogues, but a entire race of them?!:smalleek::smalleek:


be very afriad people, be VERY afriad

Coidzor
2010-12-17, 04:24 PM
^: AoE Willsaves, people, AoE Will Saves.
Oddly, that never stops them from playing out Drow-based misogynist stereotypes.

Well, you know, some people are better at realizing things aren't subtle than others. But an actively misogynistic force that has to expend time into roleplaying brutalizing and dominating women is less fun(I hope at least) and more blatantly bad than the passively misogynistic negative portrayal of women via drow dominatrices.

Conversely, they've never realized it's in bad taste due to personal ignorance on the matter.


Also, ever since dwarf fortress, my world's dwarves are always casual lunatics who beat goblins to death with their own severed legs and think that lava-based defense systems in their mountainhomes are subtle.

The dwarves' or the goblins' legs?

Yora
2010-12-17, 04:26 PM
So it's all the bad ways that people play Halfling rogues, but a entire race of them?!:smalleek::smalleek:

be very afriad people, be VERY afriad
Yes, that's probably one of the best descriptions you can make. :smallbiggrin:

Callos_DeTerran
2010-12-17, 04:33 PM
and more blatantly bad than the passively misogynistic negative portrayal of women via drow dominatrices.


See, now I want to play a subversion of a drow dominatrix for a humor-oriented/lighter-hearted game just for the hell of it. And I blame you. :smalltongue:

Also, I never had a problem with halflings, especially after their race book (races of the wild? Races of Destiny? One of those two) when they took on a distinctly...roma(? Is that the word for gypsy folk?) feel for me. One I heartily endorse because it's damn cool. Not the Tolkein kind though, unless I'm playing Overlord and thus said halflings are a massive satire of hobbits. Will NEVER play a Tolkein halfling or elf.

Darklord Bright
2010-12-17, 04:38 PM
The dwarves' or the goblins' legs?

One in each hand.

Edit: No, both in the same hand.

woodenbandman
2010-12-17, 04:45 PM
back in mah day, the drow ate babies and we LIKED IT that way. There weren't no dribbles or drizzles or whatever you call him. If you ran into a drow, you DIED.

Kansaschaser
2010-12-17, 04:49 PM
Elves suck.

Kenders suck.



Ok, at first I wasn't going to post in this thread, but then I read this. I absolutly hate Kenders and the players that want to play them. The only reason to play a Kender is to cause trouble. If the player didn't want to cause trouble, they would play a different hafling or a gnome.

"Oh, what do you have there Mr. Kender? That's a nice sword you got there. Looks a lot like mine."

"Yeah, it's a nice sword huh? I just found it a little bit ago."

10 minutes later during combat...

"Where the hell did my sword go?"

Argh! I hate it when they pick pocket me. They do it all the time. Kenders are the reason I decided to play a character with Vow of Poverty, just so I didn't have anything to steal.

readsaboutd&d
2010-12-17, 04:51 PM
While this tends to apply to any race that is played in a cliche manner, dwarves annoy me for all being the same. There are a few things that can change from series to series but in general 95% percent of dwarven races act similarly and in those races 95% of dwarves are clones.

Bonecrusher Doc
2010-12-17, 05:02 PM
I probably would get tired of halfling, elves, dwarves, orcs if I always played them the way they're described in the books.

But instead I always play in homebrew worlds, keep most of the crunch of the races, but make up mostly new fluff for each one. So a dwarf in one of my campaigns may be very different from a dwarf in another of my campaigns.

In my most recent campaign, gnomes were sailors and merchants rather tinkers and tricksters. (Bonus to Profession:Sailor rather than Illusions.) Dwarves were lumberjacks who then rafted their logs downriver. Halflings were oppressed second-class citizens who dug and sold wheelbarrows of peat to survive, without any of the jolly love of food and drink as described by Tolkien. And then we had about three different societies of humans, each as different from each other as were the other races.

Oh, and I truncated "Garl Glittergold" to just "Garl."

Coidzor
2010-12-17, 05:13 PM
See, now I want to play a subversion of a drow dominatrix for a humor-oriented/lighter-hearted game just for the hell of it. And I blame you. :smalltongue:

Blame me? :smallconfused: That's the only way that such a thing would be even palatable to me. :smalltongue: Drow culture has always seemed to me to be the result of someone getting their notes mixed up between their portable hole full of beer game, their DMing notes about a need for an evil, elven, BBEG, and someone's screed after a messy divorce.

SurlySeraph
2010-12-17, 05:36 PM
@^: So you'd prefer a drow like Sandwich (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sandwich_Stoutaxe), then?

super dark33
2010-12-17, 05:45 PM
Hate threads ussualy leads to flameing. isnt it?

Skaven
2010-12-17, 05:47 PM
Any half race.

They should be included as an option of a base race... but they're not races. They're half breeds that are supposed to be rare that are taking up a spot an actual race could have.

Kobold-Bard
2010-12-17, 05:47 PM
Hate threads ussualy leads to flameing. isnt it?

And when it does I'm sure it'll be locked. But atm everyone's angry with entirely fictional races, which is the good kind of hate.

Stupid Shifters :smallannoyed:

Cealocanth
2010-12-17, 05:49 PM
Yes, Superdark, but we may as well keep it non-flaming as long as we can.


As for me, I have a thing against Orcs. They've been stereotyped and made the enemy for so long that every Orc is exactly the same. You can't have a single Orc in your campaign without stereotypes coming in.

Tiki Snakes
2010-12-17, 05:55 PM
Any half race.

They should be included as an option of a base race... but they're not races. They're half breeds that are supposed to be rare that are taking up a spot an actual race could have.

I kind of agree to some degree. Half Elves in particular, though not bad as such, really are a bit unnecessary really. Half Orcs, in comparison, make sense.

Problem is, they make sense in a bad way. You ever noticed how WotC almost always make sure the art or miniatures for Orcs are as ugly and uninspiring as possible? And how Hobgoblins AND Bugbears seem suspiciously similar in a lot of ways to the Orcish archetype?
You're not meant to like Orcs. Preferably, in any sense. People want to play them though, so they give the 'Half Orc' concession.

I actually did toy with the idea of having Gnomes be just halfling - Dwarf crossbreeds for a long-time, actually. They are too close physically and thematically to both the others for it to not be suspicious.

The usual fluff for Halflings is pretty lackluster too, though. Dark Sun has a much better approach, as does Eberron by the sound of it. I also like the idea of eventually playing a halfling (or portraying a group of them, if I'm DMing) as banjo-playing swamp dwelling, bayou folk, with hobbitishly shoe-less feat but with creepier overtones.
Maybe also a touch of Voodoo?

Coidzor
2010-12-17, 06:03 PM
@^: So you'd prefer a drow like Sandwich (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sandwich_Stoutaxe), then?

Well, I am partial to dwarves, and I love Carrot Ironfounderson. :smallamused: Plus it's a scottish-speaking elf. That's a novelty in and of itself. :smallbiggrin:

Also, new meaning to the phrase "Sandvich and I are going to kick your ass!" :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

Gomar
2010-12-17, 06:22 PM
Dragon Born... *raspberry plus thumbs-down*

Gomar
2010-12-17, 06:27 PM
I take exception to this, being a drow fan who doesn't play any of those.

Me, too...

My Drow didn't even use weapons...and was certainly not a Drizzt clone...or a dominatrix, or a backstabber...

But it was in Scarred Lands (from WW)...the Drow are a tad different there...

i miss him....fare thee well, Lythk.

Dalek-K
2010-12-17, 06:31 PM
Half-Dragons, Dragonborn, and the other "We've shoved dragon into this for no good reason"

Dragons are awesome but not when EVERYTHING is related to dragons. They need to be RARE in order to keep inspiring awe.

To counter the previous post: Warforged are awesome. The concept, the portrayal and the mechanics are all new(ish) and invigorating to the Eberron setting.

Warforged are not awesome... They are awesome! With a world full of magic and knowledge of golems it makes perfect sense for someone to want to make a more sentient type of golem/machine thingie (yes thingie is a scientific term)... Humans (mostly) are very very curious beings even in D&D so we can assume anything a human in the real world would try to create they would in the fantasy setting.

I'm sure warforged were first thought of like this...

2 am in the morning the wizard, fighter, and thief are playing "College and Professors" and the clock chimes, the fighter blitzed on Mt Dew says "wouldn't it be cool if that clock could walk!" and begins to giggle...
The female wizard says "I can do that" and makes the clock walk.
The Thief then says "what if it was booby-trapped to kill things?" to which the wizard replies
"I can do one better"!
*ZAP*
"I can make it act like you!"

And thus the clock is animated permanently by a wizard jacked up on mt dew at 2 am . ^ ^

The next day of course they capitalize on the idea and sell it to the army like any good citizen would ^ ^

That seems reasonable... Owlbears exist so why doesn't warforged make sense in a fantasy setting?


*note i don't remember how they say warforged were created... however i like this scenario :D

AtopTheMountain
2010-12-17, 06:34 PM
I will never play a Dwarf as a fantasy character. Ironically, they're my favorite Warhammer faction.

Poil
2010-12-17, 06:35 PM
Elves. I actually don't mind them at all in DnD but from playing Shadowrun and even worse Rolemaster, they are just so damn annoying. Everyone are supposedly in awe and likes them oh so much because they are so pretty and smart and superior and graceful and better and just generally more awesome than anything else etc. I haven't come across anything that makes me hate them more than Rolemaster. They get a HUGE load of advantages over other races. Including such things as much better stats, better hit point progression (what the fish?), more immunities and resistances. Bah, dump them in a pit and pour lava on them I say! :smallfurious:


Elves. I don't hate them, but ever since Peter Jackson's LotRs, I feel they've become extremely overrated. Legolas was not a better fighter than Gimli. Gimli killed more orcs than Legolas at Helm's Deep, yet we see him doing crazy combat maneuvers. In D&D terms, they get -2 con which is a problem for pretty much every class as it determines HP.
To be fair the Helm's Deep part contained a scene of the elves grabbing their bows with both hands and charging right into heavily armored super orcs armed with pikes. That -2 to con (and -10 to int & wis) was noticeable. :smallcool:

FMArthur
2010-12-17, 06:39 PM
I do have an unusually strong dislike of Half-dragons and Dragonborn. They break verisimilitude to pieces for me because they don't have any good reason to exist except as a concession to people who want to play a dragon. The whole concept begins at ridiculously contrived and every bit you add to it makes it moreso. I really like to play winged characters, though. Maybe I'll just pretend they're more like those dragonblooded racial variants than upright humanoid lizards with stupid artwork. :smallfrown:

Callos_DeTerran
2010-12-17, 06:47 PM
i miss him....fare thee well, Lythk.

This is nothing against your personally Gomar, but it brought to mind something else. I can't stand races that don't know how to use vowels. On one side you end up with names like Lythk (which is not nearly as bad as some other names I've seen, the y makes up for it) which usually end up sounding like a dog trying to sneeze and growl at the same time...or they go too far and you end up with names like...Aeuia. That's not a name. That's a sound a seal makes when it's hungry.

Any race with a tendency to go to far in either direction earns my enmity (though usually not my hatred). Gomar just reminded me of it, sorry for singling your guy's name out. Lythk is kinda neat actually.

planswalker
2010-12-17, 06:51 PM
the Darfallen are just, well, pathetic. Someone watched Free Willy a little too much.

Oh, and Illumians have far too much select-a-race to them.

gkathellar
2010-12-17, 06:52 PM
...or they go too far and you end up with names like...Aeuia. That's not a name. That's a sound a seal makes when it's hungry.

I just tried saying that name aloud and it was the sound I make when I'm bugging my cats by making stupid noises at them.

dgnslyr
2010-12-17, 06:53 PM
Goblins, but only in the realm of Dwarf Fortress. I've lost three legendary Dwarfs to them...

Tiki Snakes
2010-12-17, 06:57 PM
I do have an unusually strong dislike of Half-dragons and Dragonborn. They break verisimilitude to pieces for me because they don't have any good reason to exist except as a concession to people who want to play a dragon. The whole concept begins at ridiculously contrived and every bit you add to it makes it moreso. I really like to play winged characters, though. Maybe I'll just pretend they're more like those dragonblooded racial variants than upright humanoid lizards with stupid artwork. :smallfrown:

I think I'd enjoy Dragonborn more if they hadn't absored quite so much pure undiluted trope. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProudWarriorRaceGuy)

darbythegambler
2010-12-17, 06:57 PM
Elves can be so prissy, gnomes can be so annoying, dwarves can be so stubborn, orcs can be so stupid... but the one race that really gets on my nerves? Humans. They pretend that they can do everything, and to play to their egos, they make themselves the most optimal race in a fantasy game. To top the aggravation that is humans, they judge every other race with "alignments" based on what humans believe is lawful, chaotic, good, and evil. They are the most annoying because they think the highest of themselves.

of course we're talking about fantasy humans, real humans have absolutely nothing wrong with them... except for being 100% evil

:smalltongue:

Loki Eremes
2010-12-17, 07:02 PM
I hate monkeys

Coidzor
2010-12-17, 07:02 PM
I hate monkeys

Well, that's why you spring traps with 'em! :smallbiggrin:

FMArthur
2010-12-17, 07:05 PM
I hate monkeys

Even vanara? They don't even act very monkey-ish. :smallfrown:

Blas_de_Lezo
2010-12-17, 07:07 PM
Elves are emos. They should be shot to death.

Half-elves are half-emos. They should be half-shot to death.

Gnomes are funny. But it's funnier to see a gnome being shot to death.

Coidzor
2010-12-17, 07:10 PM
Even vanara? They don't even act very monkey-ish. :smallfrown:

That reminds me, I need to compare and contrast vanara and hadozee sometime.

Mulletmanalive
2010-12-17, 07:14 PM
Kender. Seriously, whoever came up with them was not a good writer. People would NOT put up with that sort of BS. If it was real, they'd have changed their ways or gone extinct well before Huma's time, let alone be around post-War of Souls.

Oddly enough, real life proves you incorrect on that one. We had to do about them in Anthropology but there was a tribe in Borneo that managed to sustain itself for over 400 years [until dying out to a Dutch introduced foriegn disease] whose entire concept of ownership was the ability to hold onto stuff.

They managed to trade and everything and weren't as, well, left alone as Kender are in the Dragonlance setting.

Sometimes, history proves that humanity isn't entirely murderous :smallbiggrin:

Calmar
2010-12-17, 07:24 PM
I don't like gnomes. If I want a short rogueish type of character, I play a halfling. If I want a character with a knack for mechanical things, I play a dwarf. Gnomes are pointless in my opinion.

And I hate orcs. Not the cunning ones (http://www.tuckborough.net/images/gorbag.jpg), and definitely not the badass ones (http://lotrworld.webs.com/Group_of_Uruk_Hai.jpg), of course, but the big green retards (http://fertilegroundpdx.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/orc.jpg) whose only purpose is to reproduce at an abnormal speed, and to form pointless hordes that attack anything until they are destroyed. :smallannoyed:

Otherworld Odd
2010-12-17, 07:57 PM
Gnomes. I don't hate them, they're just my least favorite race. They always wind up as the comedic relief.

Race I really want to play: Darfellan. They just seem so badass. I figure I'd need to play him in an aquatic campaign though.


And to the person who listed tiefling stereotypes on the first page: I play a tiefling rogue and he's a good guy. >.> And wouldn't rip anyone's heart out. I think the most malicious thing he's ever done is buy a "free" hooker for our ranger/alchemist as an apology... half orc hookers... heh...

Loki Eremes
2010-12-17, 08:00 PM
Even vanara? They don't even act very monkey-ish. :smallfrown:


Who is Vanara?


Damn monkeys... they think theyre awesome with their bananas...hate them all :smallmad:

Mulletmanalive
2010-12-17, 08:13 PM
I used to detest elves. I mean detest. The way people talk about Nazis...

That was because of Terry Goodkind and certain other authors who just love them far too much and took pains to make them as smug, arrogant and automatically correct as possible. I based an entire setting around what might happen if Elves genuinely thought that little of other races. The result was slavery, a massive war, then exile to the forests.

One player insisted on playing an elf in the setting, despite me explaining what would happen and he was surprised when he was stoned to death for tugging at his sword when taunted by a child...

Other than that, I hate cat-folk [elves in disguise and a selection of anime behaviours that annoy me even more] and simply find some races baffling, in a "what does this add to the setting at all" kind of way.

All of the Incarnum races
Most of the extra elven races [i tend to take the Grey Elf myth based version as my standard]
Sun dwarfs
The extra kinds of halfling [one of which is basically just dwarf but small]
Killoriens... never sure what to make of them...

As an aside, I've never actually noted that there is an embargo on having more than one race so I used to apply the sub-par half races on top of another race. Half-elves and Half-orcs are attractive options when added to human or dwarf and not overpowered as they're basically zero-sum anyway.

FelixG
2010-12-17, 08:31 PM
The only race I hate is Gnomes, Kender would be up there if I had actually ever played with them, but thank the overdeities that no one in my games has discovered them yet or my characters would turn into Kender hunters.

The races I love are Kobolds and Warforged, they are just too awesome to be ignored!

FMArthur
2010-12-17, 08:43 PM
Kender sound horrible but honestly I have never even met a person IRL who has so much as heard of Dragonlance, so it's never been a problem. :smallconfused:

Zen Monkey
2010-12-17, 08:52 PM
I hate monkeys

Ah, my nemesis, I have found you at last.

Drakevarg
2010-12-17, 08:54 PM
To be fair the Helm's Deep part contained a scene of the elves grabbing their bows with both hands and charging right into heavily armored super orcs armed with pikes. That -2 to con (and -10 to int & wis) was noticeable. :smallcool:

Thems weren't bows. They were curved greatswords. /nitpick

Which races do I hate?

Gnomes. Part of my vitriol is from WoW, but mostly it's just because they feel pointless.

Halflings. Again, don't seem to serve much of a purpose.

Elves, as seen when creativity is not applied. Snooty wimps who, despite being immortal, take sixty years to graduate kindergarden. And yet still think themselves better than you.

On the other hand, elves are totally workable if you actually try to do something original with them. For example, in my last setting elves were pseudo-Japanese Knights Templar (the crusaders, not the trope) who spoke with Irish accents.

Planetouched. Why couldn't you just have used the Celestial/Fiendish template like everyone else?

Hobgoblins, Bugbears, and any other Orc-but-not-really. Evidently you needed to produce entirely different species, because the idea of Orcs with more than one culture was too damn hard on your fragile minds. :smallannoyed:

woodenbandman
2010-12-17, 08:55 PM
I suggest that everyone who hates Elves, Orcs, or Dwarves to pick up Burning Wheel. Even if you don't want to play the system, the fluff about those 3 races makes them SO much better.

The Elves are Christopher Lamberts, wandering around eternity lamenting the fact that THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Orcs are mostly immortal and hate everything. But it's not their fault, they're just misunderstood. Also, if you play an orc game in Burning Wheel, you eat human babies.

Dwarves are compelled by greed. They're a much more complicated race in Burning Wheel.

Humans is humans

Yahzi
2010-12-17, 09:20 PM
Gnomes as described in PHB, and Kender. I guess you could say silliness annoys me.
+1. Any race that exists solely to annoy other people kinda wrecks my sense of immersion.

AtlanteanTroll
2010-12-17, 09:21 PM
I do have an unusually strong dislike of Half-dragons and Dragonborn. They break verisimilitude to pieces for me because they don't have any good reason to exist except as a concession to people who want to play a dragon. The whole concept begins at ridiculously contrived and every bit you add to it makes it moreso. I really like to play winged characters, though. Maybe I'll just pretend they're more like those dragonblooded racial variants than upright humanoid lizards with stupid artwork. :smallfrown:

Read the BoEF. :smalltongue::smallamused:

Loki Eremes
2010-12-17, 09:47 PM
Ah, my nemesis, I have found you at last.


Duel with pistols, at dawn.
If you got the guts and the opposed fingers. :belkar:

umbrapolaris
2010-12-17, 09:53 PM
all elves except drows, their bones makes good arrows. halflings, halflings...i always hate them since LOTR, Frodo makes me vomit, it is why i hate LOTR and all his kind should be eradicated by Sauron.

LOTRfan
2010-12-17, 10:05 PM
I cannot think of a race I specifically hate. From a mechanical standpoint, I dislike certain aspects of races, but those are relatively easy to fix. I can honestly say that there is not a single race that I hate. I may be indifferent to a bunch, but not ALL MUST DIE hate.


all elves except drows, their bones makes good arrows. halflings, halflings...i always hate them since LOTR, Frodo makes me vomit, it is why i hate LOTR and all his kind should be eradicated by Sauron.

.... *walks out quickly, hoping Umbrapolaris won't notice* :smalltongue:

Dienekes
2010-12-17, 10:17 PM
I joke about hating elves, mostly because they're anti-dwarves and dwarves rock. And hey, they're easy targets.

Actual races I really don't like:
Drow, I don't think I need to explain this.
Warforged, ultimately I like playing in low fantasy. Having a robot walk around kinda annoys me.

daxos232
2010-12-17, 10:18 PM
I'm not a fan of the sub-races. Wood elves, sun elves, blah blah blah. Its not just the elves, its all of them. They don't have enough difference to justify exsistence to me. I like the idea for tieflings and aasimar, but they should each be unique. The super natural parent who spawned you should give a different benefit or penalty than another.

I like the Glorantha setting. Elves are living, moving plants, created by the nature gods. They have a really great level of detail, they actually feel like they have a definite reason to exsist and a place in the world.
Dwarves are even better. Each is made of a mineral/metal like stone, clay, iron, or bronze. They exsist to maintain and repair the World Machine, damaged in the Dark Time by chaos. Elves, trolls, humans are all mistakes, created by the malfunctioning Machine. But it will be set right again, and the Machine will run according to Plan.

I like how it takes vanilla races and really gives them personaility.

realbombchu
2010-12-17, 11:10 PM
I don't hate any of the fantasy races, but there are many (maybe 100+) fantasy races that I never use. There is neither the space nor the time to include everyone in my worlds. I've used subraces before, but I usually choose only one. For example, all elves are wild elves, and drow are just scary bedtime stories.

Back on subject, my least favorite PH race is the gnome, for what it's worth.

I don't need gnomes to run most of my adventures and I'm learning that fewer races, each with more depth, is better.

Blackfang108
2010-12-17, 11:43 PM
Because, let's face it, the other races are not humans. ... Cosmetic things are a good start ...

To be fair, I wasn't talking about "OMG, I Look different!!!!!" And if you REALLY feel that the other races are "human-wannabees," then I'm sorry that you can't reflavor them usefully.

I was talking about playing something with an entirely different MINDSET.

I play a human in real life. Playing one in the game isn't challenging, it's boring.

Sir_Chivalry
2010-12-18, 12:05 AM
To be fair, I wasn't talking about "OMG, I Look different!!!!!" And if you REALLY feel that the other races are "human-wannabees," then I'm sorry that you can't reflavor them usefully.

I was talking about playing something with an entirely different MINDSET.

I play a human in real life. Playing one in the game isn't challenging, it's boring.

You're saying that being a wizard (or any class that isn't a real world person) isn't enough of mindset change, that the crutch of race is needed?

A human can have just as much culture difference as any fantasy race. However, you can't just point at a human and say "He's a human fighter. He was raised in human society, and tries to be the pinnacle of human-ness!" People do however, take that sentence and replace the word human with elf or dwarf or some such.


I play a human in real life. Playing one in the game isn't challenging, it's boring.

Ah, I am also a human in real life, but the key is I'm not a barbarian in real life. My wife didn't get torn apart by a barghest on our honeymoon. I don't have an addiction to sannish. But my character is, his wife was, and he does. He's also human, but manages to not be boring.:smallsmile:

Arutema
2010-12-18, 12:12 AM
Gnomes. The "small guy" role is already done (and better) by the Halfling, and the fluff given in the PHB encourages Gnomes to be silly.

The Big Dice
2010-12-18, 12:23 AM
I was talking about playing something with an entirely different MINDSET.
Try playing a Naga in L5R. Sure, you look like you're half man, half snake. But you also literally share souls with the rest of your race. And that awesome bit of fluff is represented in crunch as well.

monkman
2010-12-18, 12:34 AM
Personally i Hate Elves,Gnomes,Human subtypes and sometimes halflings.
Elves: these Big point earned people are extremely annoying either there are nature guys(hippies) or some snobs which you want to punch them in the face.
Gnomes: First There stats are bad,Why exactly would i want +2 con when i'm small? Im not going to be a barbarian,Im going to be a wizard or something of that sort.And plus they have a horrible reputation of being annoying tricksters
Human subtypes:I'm talking about azurins,rilkans,skarns and any other race that has minor modifications to the human.There are to many of these thing and plus they all have a crappy reason why they changed from a normal human.I dont like them,There just there and they really don't do anything,Another thing that pissed me off is that humans don't get elemental variants,Wizard should really scrap the human subtypes and make elemental variants instead for human because who gives a dam about being a slightly changed human?
Halfing: These people are okay,I've played a couple of them in campaigns and it not to bad,The main problem I see with them are that they are just small humans.

Lord Raziere
2010-12-18, 12:55 AM
I hate elves. all else is fine, but elves no.

which is why one of my favorite characters of mine is a humble elven diplomat who only ever refers to himself as "just a simple ambassador", is completely polite, loves book and civilization and wishes everyone to get over that bad habit called "racism". :smallbiggrin:

Xuc Xac
2010-12-18, 01:22 AM
Wow, this thread grew quickly. So much to reply to...


Flying races

Seriously what DM is crazy enough to allow that?

What player is crazy enough to try that? It's difficult enough to go on a dungeon crawl with a large backpack. Trying to fight in narrow corridors while hauling a big pair of useless wings behind you would be a nightmare. It would be like trying to go through a dungeon while wearing a back banner except it's painful when the banner hits things and you can bleed to death or go into shock if they get hit or twisted.



To put it bluntly, if you're a jerk I hate your character, and will do everything in my power to make sure the NPC's you insult pay you back. That's how it works in reality.

Sometimes, in reality, people just take insults without retaliating with bloody vengeance.


Well, look at your average chimpanzee. Not much bigger than a halfling, but several times strong than a human in many ways.


Have you ever seen a chimpanzee that didn't move like a drunken toddler? They have the same muscles as humans but they're arranged to have better leverage for strength instead of precision. Almost all muscle fibers in the animal kingdom have the same strength for their weight. The only differences are in how the fibers are connected to the skeleton for leverage, how densely packed the fibers are, and how much power is wasted by hauling around the non-muscle parts of the body.


And I don't see how orcs, a race that sees women as an item and kill the ones that cannot please their husbands, have no attractive women.

Male birds have colourful plumage because they have been bred to be really sexy to female birds. They aren't that sexy by human standards, but they are quite hot to the bird ladies. Orcish women are probably very attractive by orcish standards, but orcish standards probably don't emphasize the same traits that humans like.


What's the point of (halflings)?

Halflings are small little guys who can go toe to toe with a human or orc brute and stand a fair chance of winning. This is completely unrealistic, but as someone who has gamed with little people, I can see the appeal of that. Very short and weak players find "little people that can kick ass the equal of any full sized person" to be very appealing in their gaming wish fulfillment. Even if they play other races, they still like knowing that halflings are possible. And speaking of geekdom in general, halflings also illustrate the common geek misconception that a small, wiry, quick guy is the equal of a big dumb jock. In reality, the big guys are just as fast (or faster), but halflings support the more egalitarian myth.


My favorite fantasy species are Tolkien's hobbits. Essentially simple people who enjoy farming, family, eating and drinking. It is something that there were only two (and two is arguable) evil hobbits ever.

There were probably more evil hobbits, but they didn't have any power so their evil was limited to stuff like overcharging for barley seeds or secretly moving that big rock that marks the boundary between his field and the next farmstead instead of nastier things like genocide.


Might be my book selection. Out of SRD races, Drow are the only ones that have a culture that's listed as being based on sexism afaik.

That's probably because they're one of the few that have a culture, full stop.


Oddly enough, real life proves you incorrect on that one. We had to do about them in Anthropology but there was a tribe in Borneo that managed to sustain itself for over 400 years [until dying out to a Dutch introduced foriegn disease] whose entire concept of ownership was the ability to hold onto stuff.

If one of those tribesman were to leave Borneo, I don't think it would take very long for him to learn the very simple concept of "ownership continues even after the object leaves the hand; ownership isn't transferred until it's explicitly stated by the owner". Kender seem to have brains that are hardwired to not understand the concept of property rights as practiced by everyone else in their world. That's a pretty fatal drawback that should have led to the extinction of their species. I hate them so much.


I play a human in real life. Playing one in the game isn't challenging, it's boring.

Are all humans the same? I play a human every day too, but the human I play is nothing like Jason Statham or Christopher Lee. They are both awesome and yet completely different from me and from each other. I wouldn't want to play me in a game because I do that in real life, but there are a lot of other humans that would be quite interesting to play.

The Tygre
2010-12-18, 05:05 AM
There is no race that I hate. Except kender. Mother ****ing kender. They just need to be rounded up in a sack and drowned. But then there might be kender ghosts. Immortal kender. Forever. *shivers* Not a big fan of gnomes either, to be honest. But there is no idea that can't be reworked, no race that can't be broken of stereotypes or annoyances. You just have to try. For example;

Tieflings
#1: The Loner - He's never alone. He is forever in the company of invisible hell spirits constantly mocking and driving him mad. He knows not the border between reality and his twisted visions. Boom.
#2: The Seductress - Mutations. I mean Akira levels of mutations. Tumors for eyes and twisted roots of meat for legs. Yeah, be sexy with that on ya'. Boom.
#3: The Goth - Never. Leave them. Alone. Ever. Boom.
#4" The Hellion - Archons. Not angels, archons. Angels forgive. Archons serve JUSTICE. Why? Because archons are the god-damned Inquisitors of Heaven. They obey the LAW. And when some smart ass lil' hell bastard causes too much trouble and breaks THE LAW to hurt people, archons swoop in. Because the Xenos must be purged. BOOM.

Drow
#1: The Rebel - This works like basic math;
Drow = Evil Elf
Drow = Evil Elf - Evil
Drow = Elf
Boom. I just solved R.A. Salvataore. Someone write me a fekking check.

#2: The Psychopath - Do you know how many enemies the drow have? Every species of dwarf and elf, not to mention mind flayers, aboleths, driders, and even other drow hate drow. Someone's going to die eventually. Boom.

Coidzor
2010-12-18, 05:26 AM
There is no race that I hate. Except kender. Mother ****ing kender. They just need to be rounded up in a sack and drowned. But then there might be kender ghosts. Immortal kender. Forever. *shivers* Not a big fan of gnomes either, to be honest. But there is no idea that can't be reworked, no race that can't be broken of stereotypes or annoyances. You just have to try. For example;

Tieflings
#1: The Loner - He's never alone. He is forever in the company of invisible hell spirits constantly mocking and driving him mad. He knows not the border between reality and his twisted visions. Boom.
#2: The Seductress - Mutations. I mean Akira levels of mutations. Tumors for eyes and twisted roots of meat for legs. Yeah, be sexy with that on ya'. Boom.
#3: The Goth - Never. Leave them. Alone. Ever. Boom.
#4" The Hellion - Archons. Not angels, archons. Angels forgive. Archons serve JUSTICE. Why? Because archons are the god-damned Inquisitors of Heaven. They obey the LAW. And when some smart ass lil' hell bastard causes too much trouble and breaks THE LAW to hurt people, archons swoop in. Because the Xenos must be purged. BOOM.

Drow
#1: The Rebel - This works like basic math;
Drow = Evil Elf
Drow = Evil Elf - Evil
Drow = Elf
Boom. I just solved R.A. Salvataore. Someone write me a fekking check.

#2: The Psychopath - Do you know how many enemies the drow have? Every species of dwarf and elf, not to mention mind flayers, aboleths, driders, and even other drow hate drow. Someone's going to die eventually. Boom.

This just seems circuitous and passive aggressive. If you know about it beforehand, then most of them seem petty to be done rather than heading off the problem at the pass. And if it comes up only after a period of play, most of those just fall into the **** move category barring something egregious enough to warrant an actual, y'know, conversation between player and DM. :smallconfused:

The Tygre
2010-12-18, 05:49 AM
It was meant more in jest than anything else, truth be told. Following the Old (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/3/4/)Ways (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/9/)and all that. :smallbiggrin:

Yora
2010-12-18, 06:38 AM
Do all gnome haters love kobolds?

Coidzor
2010-12-18, 06:40 AM
^: It's possible. One of my friends hated gnomes and made up a race of medium-sized super kobolds once.

Then he went and made a hybrid race of goblins and gnomes a year and a half later. :smallconfused:

Morithias
2010-12-18, 06:43 AM
Personally I want to bring something up with the Drow. I think they're quite well designed if you look at it. They're a race stuck in constant civil war with all kinds of enemies and are very disorganized, wasting their time hurting each, other when united they could be a threat to a very large number of races.

There was a culture very similar to this in the real world, which went on a empire creating rampage in the 13th century.

The Mongols.

Suddenly I can't help but think, "Drow legendary leader unites the majority of them and starts taking over the world." Wouldn't be that crazy of a plot.

gkathellar
2010-12-18, 07:50 AM
Suddenly I can't help but think, "Drow legendary leader unites the majority of them and starts taking over the world." Wouldn't be that crazy of a plot.

See Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark. Turned out kind of lame.

Tetsubo 57
2010-12-18, 08:17 AM
I can't say I hate any of the races. But I am not fond of any half-race. I exclude them from my games. In my games none of the races can interbreed. Sex of course is a different issue...

Morithias
2010-12-18, 08:59 AM
See Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark. Turned out kind of lame.

Epic fail on the writer's part then in my opinion. The Mongol wars (is there even an official name for it), is one of the most interesting, and insane historical events that I've ever had the chance to experience.

Coidzor
2010-12-18, 09:02 AM
Epic fail on the writer's part then in my opinion. The Mongol wars (is there even an official name for it), is one of the most interesting, and insane historical events that I've ever had the chance to experience.

Is there something you'd like to share with the class? :smallconfused:

Kurald Galain
2010-12-18, 09:03 AM
I was talking with one of my friends and we got to the subject of fantasy races.

There are several races that, imho, have turned into an overused cliche. The primary example is drow, but tieflings also qualify. Aside from that, I'm not too fond on having half-races either.

Coidzor
2010-12-18, 09:07 AM
There are several races that, imho, have turned into an overused cliche. The primary example is drow, but tieflings also qualify. Aside from that, I'm not too fond on having half-races either.

It can definitely get carried away and start to seem like an episode of "Will it blend?"

LOTRfan
2010-12-18, 09:15 AM
Is there something you'd like to share with the class? :smallconfused:

Ignore that statement, pitiful mortal. We are just like you. Move along...

Shpadoinkle
2010-12-18, 10:27 AM
There are races I'm not especially fond of (elves and half-elves spring to mind, but that has more to do with how people portray them,) but the only fantasy race I outright hate are kender.

Let's see, annoying little ADD kleptomaniacs who are constantly stealing stuff (ACTUAL QUOTE FROM THE FLUFF: "Kender appropriate (read: steal) absolutely anything that catches their eye.") then lie about it? And they're absolutely convinced that everybody in the world is their bestest friends ever? And they're quite happy to blurt out any information whatesoever, regardless of how sensitive or private it might be? God no.

Morithias
2010-12-18, 10:35 AM
Is there something you'd like to share with the class? :smallconfused:

Lucid dreaming. In this reality I am but a human, in the planes of imagination I am Mr. Mxyzptlk.

Clever answer, or a cop out to hide the fact I'm actually a time walker? Take your pick.

Ormur
2010-12-18, 10:46 AM
I don't hate any particular fantasy race, but in the abstract sense I dislike how many of them there are. I really have a trouble imagining how you can fit all those sentient creatures into a single setting.

Therefore I particularly dislike all those sub-races. Isn't it enough to have dozens of distinct races, each race must also have sub-races with distinctive abilities. Why don't just print separate stats for every single village in the world.

I like a bit of tidiness in the world, or at least a proper explanation of what justifies different racial abilities. Kitchen sinks don't appeal to me

d12
2010-12-18, 11:38 AM
(This is all as of 3.5; 4.0 was released around the time I started losing interest in playing D&D, so I've never been in a 4.0 game and don't know a lot about it)

Can't stand gnomes. I was in a game with a player who used a gnome once, and based on stories I've heard, it must have been the only gnome ever to not continuously think "what's the stupidest thing I could possibly do?" Also can't stand the stupid names that are apparently compulsory. And I don't think I handle whimsy very well in general, which I'm sure doesn't help.

Also hate kobolds and will not knowingly play in a game where someone else uses one, especially if that one book is being used (forget the title), or is acknowledged as anything other than bad fan fiction. I actually have played in a game where someone used a kobold also (might have been the same guy who played that gnome--I think the DM was feeding him notes taken from our conversations about D&D in general), but it was toward the end of my run in that game, so I don't remember a lot. There's comedic potential in kobolds thinking they're somehow related to dragons, but being so completely, horribly wrong though.

Also never liked how half-elves are treated as natural diplomats, because I just don't see how non-humans and non-elves would care who their parents were, and I also don't have much trouble imagining humans or elves who wouldn't really care either (even wrote up an idea once for a region populated by elves who were just recently able to throw off the yoke of human oppression they'd endured for ages and were trying to rebuild their shattered and suppressed culture--they weren't fans of half-elves). The whole thing just seems to make a lot of assumptions about the overall culture and history of the game's setting. Now, if there was a setting where that was dropped, I probably wouldn't mind them much, aside from having somewhat poor stats.

The thing I really don't like though is racial deities. It always just seems to produce a bunch of lazy copycats, like elves always loving bows and swords and molesting small forest creatures cuz that's what Klingon Lothario is into. It might be more a problem of only describing one general culture for various races and assuming it applies everywhere in the gameworld, but I've just attached my distaste for that idea to the racial deities themselves over time.

I have a generally neutral to somewhat positive attitude about elves themselves--they're just not wizards is all.

Stuff I like/don't mind which others in this thread have expressed distaste for:

Drow: I've never had the misfortune of playing in a game with a crazy drow stereotype, so that might have something to do with it. Fine with the matriarchal society, but don't care for how their society also happens to be crazy and completely unworkable. I once had an idea about a drow pirate captain who had a druid cohort who had an elasmosaur for an animal companion, so because of that I can't easily be completely turned off of drow in general. :smallbiggrin:

Planetouched: There's a small caveat in there about greatly preferring aasimars that are evil or neutral jackass based on a comment I once read about how aasimars must be the most put upon race in all of D&D. I've also never been in a game with a bad tiefling stereotype either, so that might be a factor again. I briefly played a tiefling who was just kind of quiet and unassuming and mostly preferred to read old books, which was how he became interested in magic. There are bits about how his ancestry probably influenced his life decisions a bit (being unusual enough that his peers would think he was an oddball, but not unusual enough to be cool because of it, so he stayed indoors reading in his uncle's study most of the time, for instance), but he wasn't exactly broken up over it nor did he really hate anybody because of it. It was just how things were. I've always had a hard time with naming characters, so I just called him Torgo. How far that falls into stereotype territory or if it's just me having trouble coming up with 'interesting' character backgrounds I don't know. Never thought there was anything especially bad about that character setup though.

Halflings: I just don't know what to do with them more than anything else.

Leon
2010-12-18, 12:58 PM
Gnomes (All except Whisper - who really shouldn't be taxed with the silliness that is related to the word and called something else and not associated with gnomes at all)

WeLoveFireballs
2010-12-18, 01:40 PM
All the unearthed arcana race variants are just........no.... In fact all non core races just don't make sense. Not to mention the hate I have for warforged.

Yora
2010-12-18, 01:41 PM
I don't hate any particular fantasy race, but in the abstract sense I dislike how many of them there are. I really have a trouble imagining how you can fit all those sentient creatures into a single setting.
You don't. My current campaign has 6 humanoid races plus giants and fey and demons. Works perfectly okay.

Warforged seem like a stupid idea for all settings. But Eberron! Within the Eberron setting, they really make sense and fir the rest of the setting very well. I really like them a lot, but they only work in a very specific type of games.

Nero24200
2010-12-18, 01:54 PM
It may be in part due to overexposure, but I'm starting to have a dislike with alot of the standard fantasy races. I also think it's part of how they are played.

Elves
Sick of the Tolkien elves, , especially since in quite a few of the myths and stories I've read regarding elves they aren't taller in humans. In fact, I read a story about 10 minutes ago from a Scottish myth featuring an "elf" that was the same size as a rose petal.

Now, I've not really read enough myths etc to really know if this is the norm or the exception, but it does annoy me that the tolkien elf is widely accepted while other types just get funny looks when brought up. If I want to play an elf that isn't snobby and aloof I seem to always get funny looks. I also find this problem snowballs like crazy with online games like NWN. I recall seeing some servers where the elves would only talk to each other and treat any non-elves like grabbage.


Dwarves
This should be an obvious one. Cookie-Cutter Dwarves. Every one is the same. Even in the hands of creative roleplayers they devolve into "Crude drunkards with Scottish Accents". When I see more beardless, sober dwarves with different accents I'll be happier.

Gnomes
Similer problem to the dwarves, albeit to a much lesser extent. It's either "mad scientist" or "free spirit". I don't think PF made them any better with the whole "Be kooky in some way or become physically ill and society reject" idea.

Halflings
Not really got a problem with them. But then again, I just see them as the generic short race rather than LOTR hobbits.

Half-Orcs
Not really got a problem with half-orcs, but I hate how people bring up this whole "Orc Rape" thing - especially considering that the PHB says nothing about it and even strongly surgests that Orc and Human tribes can get on well and even trade with each other. What's more annoying is that elves supposedly possess supernatural beauty, far more than any human - So why does no one scream "elf rape" whenever someone brings up the topic of a half-elf?".

Drow
Just PF drow in this case. It just seems a little silly is all. When asked about sub-races some PF writers said they didn't like them because they seemed a little racist. Then comes the drow who (Second Darkness Spoilers)Only exist when an elf becomes truely evil. Bascially, if you're an elf in Golarian and very, very naughty, your skin turns black. How the writers managed to slip that one under the radar is beyond me.


Personally, I love alot of the more unusal races (such as Raptorians, Goliaths etc), partly because they add something unique and also partly because they don't exist in LOTR, so if I play one as a unique character I don't get funny looks when he doesn't fall into the stereotype.

Sang Real
2010-12-18, 02:15 PM
Gnomes. The "small guy" role is already done (and better) by the Halfling, and the fluff given in the PHB encourages Gnomes to be silly.
Because house-sized flying lizards and turning bat guano into fireballs isn't silly?

Not to pick on you Arutema, but I find it amazing how much mental energy people can put into hating something as silly as a make-believe race. I'm frankly apathetic about most races, but I've made places for centaurs, tinker gnomes, forest gnomes, war forged and shard minds in my campaign despite how silly I think they are.

I usually re-label half dorcs as full orcs, because it's just weird that the half-breed makes the PC list and not the parent, but I don't mind 'em.

Mordokai
2010-12-18, 02:27 PM
Half-Orcs
Not really got a problem with half-orcs, but I hate how people bring up this whole "Orc Rape" thing - especially considering that the PHB says nothing about it and even strongly surgests that Orc and Human tribes can get on well and even trade with each other. What's more annoying is that elves supposedly possess supernatural beauty, far more than any human - So why does no one scream "elf rape" whenever someone brings up the topic of a half-elf?".

Er, what? So you're saying when supposedly beautiful race has a child with human it's supposed to be a rape, but when a supposedly ugly race has a child with human, that can't be a rape? Or shouldn't be?

I must admit, I'm very confused here.

Morithias
2010-12-18, 02:34 PM
Er, what? So you're saying when supposedly beautiful race has a child with human it's supposed to be a rape, but when a supposedly ugly race has a child with human, that can't be a rape? Or shouldn't be?

I must admit, I'm very confused here.

I think he was asking, why we assume orcs rape the humans, but don't assume the humans do the same to the elves if we base the assumptions on the rape being done by the uglier race.

Also let's try to ween this down a bit people, we're starting to enter dangerous waters, don't want this thread locked down. It was bad enough when we lost the crack pairings thread.

Nero24200
2010-12-18, 02:37 PM
I think he was asking, why we assume orcs rape the humans, but don't assume the humans do the same to the elves if we base the assumptions on the rape being done by the uglier race.

Pretty much this. I really don't like how everyone assumes the "not so nice" manner in which half-orcs are supposedly made is the norm, when nothing the PHB even hints that that is the case.

AtlanteanTroll
2010-12-18, 02:38 PM
I think he was asking, why we assume orcs rape the humans, but don't assume the humans do the same to the elves if we base the assumptions on the rape being done by the uglier race.

Who says they don't? Depends what parent is what race...

Mordokai
2010-12-18, 02:38 PM
I think he was asking, why we assume orcs rape the humans, but don't assume the humans do the same to the elves if we base the assumptions on the rape being done by the uglier race.

That would actually make sense. Thanks for clarifying that up.

Morithias
2010-12-18, 02:43 PM
Pretty much this. I really don't like how everyone assumes the "not so nice" manner in which half-orcs are supposedly made is the norm, when nothing the PHB even hints that that is the case.

Personally I just link them to the comic with the Therkla's Parents. So romantic. lol

Admiral Squish
2010-12-18, 03:18 PM
Wow, I really never expected THIS much commentary out of this idle thread.

Anyways, I came to comment on the whole elf/human relations thing. We all know how human males think elf females are hot, but this (http://andersson.elfwood.com/Human-Interest.2524358.html) implies the opposite is true as well. Perhaps the same thing applies. Human females find orc males rugged and manly, while orc females find human males exceedingly cute.

super dark33
2010-12-18, 03:21 PM
lets see:

humens: im a humen (or not?)
elves:Tree hugging vegeterian pacifist androgynos smuggy showoffs.
dwarves:rock hugging alchoholic fascist (for the dwaren nation is the main exemple) hairy bearder short vikings
halflings:tiny happy people throwing stones
gnomes:tiny brainy people casting illusions (and loved by DMs as unbeatable shopkeepers/caravan people)
half orcs:stupied bullies, but i like them :smallbiggrin:
half elves: michal jackson's

Coidzor
2010-12-18, 03:28 PM
Half-Orcs
Not really got a problem with half-orcs, but I hate how people bring up this whole "Orc Rape" thing - especially considering that the PHB says nothing about it and even strongly surgests that Orc and Human tribes can get on well and even trade with each other. What's more annoying is that elves supposedly possess supernatural beauty, far more than any human - So why does no one scream "elf rape" whenever someone brings up the topic of a half-elf?".

Tradition. An Open Secret. Call it what you will. Hell, realism, even, considering they're a raiding culture.

And it's not because they're the uglier race. So that point is irrelevant to human-elf relations.

Rob Roy
2010-12-18, 03:43 PM
I really hate the "we're better than you at everything and we respect nature" elves. Whenever I start a mythopoeia , if I put elves in at all, I generally make them hypocritical ecoterrorists that are losing a war against every other race on the planet. The other races don't even see it as a war. Stupid pointy eared, tree hugging pricks. Now then, lets correct some spelling!


lets see:

Humans: I'm a human (or not?).
Elves:Tree hugging, vegetarian, pacifist, androgynous, smug, showoffs.
Dwarves: Rock hugging, alcoholic fascist,(for the dwarven nation is the main example) hairy, bearded, short, vikings.
Halflings: Tiny, happy people, who throw stones.
Gnomes: Tiny, brainy people who can cast illusions (and loved by DMs as an unbeatable race of shopkeepers or caravan people)
Half orcs: Stupid bullies, but I like them :smallbiggrin:
Half elves: Michael Jacksons

Bolded stuff is stuff that has been corrected. Is it so hard to use the forum spellchecker? I understand that your not a native English speaker, but this kind of stuff really bugs me.
EDIT
Great, I made a grammar error in a post where I'm correcting grammar. Also, he spell checker doesn't recognize the word dwarven, which is kinda weird. It doesn't recognize halfling either.

Grelna the Blue
2010-12-18, 04:24 PM
Elves in my game aren't an Evil race--or at least, not all of them are Evil. But by human standards relatively few of them qualify for Good status, either. Their dominance of the continent was badly weakened in the Great Racial Wars against the elder trolls and nagas several millennia ago, even though they won those wars.

The younger, faster breeding races expanded into territory the elves formerly held (and as far as the bitter elves are concerned, those races trashed the place). From behind the spellwrought boundaries of their scattered lands, the elves now coldly watch, stockpile, and prepare as the human, orc, and goblin nations of the outside world go to war with each other. Some elves even move in disguise through human lands gathering information and attempting to keep them from gaining a decisive advantage. After the younger races have exhausted their strength, then is when they plan to make their move. Of course, the hidden remnants of the elder troll and naga races are watching too...

This is true for my current campaign and for the last two, all set in the same world generations apart. As the world has spiraled down into deepening chaos and darkness (offset to some degree in some areas by the PCs' past successes), most of those players who have been in my game for some time have come to share the societally held deep mistrust of elves common to most human nations.
"Put not your trust in elves. Their ways are not our ways. Their goals are not our goals."is a commonly quoted bit of wisdom given to characters of players who are new to my game.

Oh, and when the PCs meet an elf wearing a green copper mask, they know that tact may be called for. Those elves are among the many who fought 2000 years ago to defend the borders of their lands before the defenses went up and who swore to kill all humans they met face to face. Elves rarely lie and never break an oath, but they are quite adept at changing the truth...

SurlySeraph
2010-12-18, 04:44 PM
Oh, and when the PCs meet an elf wearing a green copper mask, they know that tact may be called for. Those elves are among the many who fought 2000 years ago to defend the borders of their lands before the defenses went up and who swore to kill all humans they met face to face. Elves rarely lie and never break an oath, but they are quite adept at changing the truth...

That's remarkably badass.

Speaking of which, it might be worth noting portrayals that make unlikable races awesome. My favorites are Eberron's bit on how you don't see guards in gnome cities because it's easier to kill criminals in their sleep, and it's not like a clumsy idiot like the typical human is going to get away; and Frank and K's bit on how Sahuagin own 3/4s of the world's surface, are more powerful than all the land races combined, and don't seem threatening only because they've already conquered everything that matters.

monkey3
2010-12-18, 06:54 PM
This should be a pole :)

GNOMES!!!two

Shadowleaf
2010-12-18, 11:50 PM
Elves suck.

Dwarves suck.

Halflings suck.

Gnomes suck.

Humans suck.

Orcs suck.

Halfbreeds suck.

Kenders suck.

Kobolds are cool. I'm just sayin'.
I fully endorse this.

Cealocanth
2010-12-19, 12:00 AM
This should be a pole :)

Wha? :confused:

Admiral Squish
2010-12-19, 12:04 AM
Wha? :confused:

Think he means Poll.

Knaight
2010-12-19, 12:26 AM
I suggest that everyone who hates Elves, Orcs, or Dwarves to pick up Burning Wheel. Even if you don't want to play the system, the fluff about those 3 races makes them SO much better.

I was about to bring this up myself. Burning Wheel managed to make the three of them palatable, partially because of the idea of a vice that one has to fight as a member of a species is so interesting. The orcish inclination towards hatred is far preferable to the simple innate evilness, elves tendency towards grief is an excellent method of portraying extreme longevity as at least somewhat a disadvantage. As for humans, pride is fairly heavily implied.

Coming back to D&D, I hate almost all of the "races". So many have no real identity and lend to stereotyping, and its the really odd ones that work better. I like Warforged, I like Githzerai, I like Thri-keen, and while I'm unlikely to actually use any of them, let alone all at once, they are at least interesting. Of course, I find the Thranx (Commonwealth) far more interesting than the Vulcan or Klingon as well, so that establishes my position as odd.

Tvtyrant
2010-12-19, 12:26 AM
I hate:
Goblins
Kobolds
Orcs
Warforged
..And essentially any species that is expected to survive as tribes that are conveniently small and weak. Seriously, all of the goblinoids in the world on one side and a single Balor on the other and who is going to win?

And I personally find Warforged silly. Why would anyone want to manufacture a group of soldiers that have to be trained just like real troops? In a cost benefit analysis how many level 1 warforged would it take to bring down an Iron Golem, and would they cost less then it?

WeLoveFireballs
2010-12-19, 12:32 AM
If you have read start of darkness it explains all that :smallbiggrin:

Drakevarg
2010-12-19, 12:32 AM
And I personally find Warforged silly. Why would anyone want to manufacture a group of soldiers that have to be trained just like real troops? In a cost benefit analysis how many level 1 warforged would it take to bring down an Iron Golem, and would they cost less then it?

I've always figured Warforged were favored due to greater potential, and more flexibility. Iron Golems are pretty much good for one thing: smashing things. And once you build one, that's as powerful as it's ever going to be.

On the other hand, you can build Warforged to serve pretty much any function you can think of, and they're only going to become more powerful as they learn. Sure, they suck when they come off the assembly line, but give them the same training as a human soldier and suddenly they're a force to be reckoned with.

Compare that to, say, raising a human army from scratch. 15-odd years to get the squishy bastards even big enough to train, and even then you have to worry about stuff like "pay" and "downtime" and "ethics."

Tvtyrant
2010-12-19, 12:36 AM
I've always figured Warforged were favored due to greater potential, and more flexibility. Iron Golems are pretty much good for one thing: smashing things. And once you build one, that's as powerful as it's ever going to be.

On the other hand, you can build Warforged to serve pretty much any function you can think of, and they're only going to become more powerful as they learn.

Right, just like your actual soldiers, which you get from the same amount of training. If your using money to make Warforged you have a strong economy, in which case you could give your soldiers wands of scorching ray or Iron Golems to use as guns and tanks as opposed to producing more basic level troops.

Shpadoinkle
2010-12-19, 12:37 AM
I hate:
And I personally find Warforged silly. Why would anyone want to manufacture a group of soldiers that have to be trained just like real troops? In a cost benefit analysis how many level 1 warforged would it take to bring down an Iron Golem, and would they cost less then it?

Yeah, it's totally stupid to create an army that never has to eat, drink, rest, or sleep! And it's totally pointless to build a machine that can crank out legions of soldiers that can learn and adapt on the fly, as opposed to building a single soldier who can only follow orders mindlessly!

Tvtyrant
2010-12-19, 12:42 AM
Yeah, it's totally stupid to create an army that never has to eat, drink, rest, or sleep! And it's totally pointless to build a machine that can crank out legions of soldiers that can learn and adapt on the fly, as opposed to building a single soldier who can only follow orders mindlessly!

Well if your going to go all sarcasm mode:
1. They revolt. You just made an army that doesn't need to eat, sleep, drink, rest and doesn't need you. Good job!
2. My point was that a group of Warforged from the machine cost as much as a magic immune Iron Golem, which is stronger then the group.
3. I gave an example of a better use of money then either in the ray wands; if you can make a machine for Warforged you can do it for 3d6 wands.
4. Following orders mindlessly means it cannot feel fear as well. No routing, no breaking lines, no spilling secrets when captured.

Danin
2010-12-19, 01:27 AM
Drow
Kobolds
3.5 Gnomes. 4e Gnomes are cool.
Naga
Elans
Dromites
Shardminds (If noted for being absurdly rare: Maybe)
Wilden
Thri-Keen

Halflings in my campaign are wandering Jewish gypsies, setting up camp near larger settlements, often accused of thievery (though this is rarely true) and lacking a homeland for their own.

Elves in my campaign are semi-xenophobic natives who live in lodges and long houses and worship a patron animal based on their clan. Clan dragon has been trained by an ambitious red dragon in initiator classes and are about to lead a war band against the humans for sacking a village of clan jackal.

Dwarves are generally bankers and industrialists, while the dwarven Kaiser and fellow nobility rule over a fairly militaristic nation that recently emerged form civil war that resulted into the formation of another state, a newly formed republic with a high dwarven population and a penchant for mass agriculture.

Lizardfolk have a large, vaguely Aztec and Incan inspired civilization that has thus far repelled any incursions of armed humans, while have established minor trade relations with Espe, a vaguely Spanish inspired nation.

Rob Roy
2010-12-19, 01:34 AM
Drow
Kobolds
3.5 Gnomes. 4e Gnomes are cool.
Naga
Elans
Dromites
Shardminds (If noted for being absurdly rare: Maybe)
Wilden
Thri-Keen

Why would you hate Thri-keen? They're mantis people that hunger for elf flesh and live in the desert. The only bad thing about them was in 2e when they had those thorax things, and they ditched that by 3.0. Again, how can you hate elf eating, four armed, bug people?


I personally love Kender. Not as a PC Race, but Tasslehoff is that fracking amazing.
I agree, Tasslehoff was awesome.

AslanCross
2010-12-19, 01:38 AM
I hate:
Goblins
Kobolds
Orcs
Warforged
..And essentially any species that is expected to survive as tribes that are conveniently small and weak. Seriously, all of the goblinoids in the world on one side and a single Balor on the other and who is going to win?

It's a bit odd to use a high-level demon as a measure of strength against a tribal society.




And I personally find Warforged silly. Why would anyone want to manufacture a group of soldiers that have to be trained just like real troops? In a cost benefit analysis how many level 1 warforged would it take to bring down an Iron Golem, and would they cost less then it?

Warforged never sleep and never get tired or bored. Thus they can learn continuously and pick up the basics of combat way faster than humanoids. It's also much easier to socialize them for war, and their intelligence means that they are a great deal more self-sufficient than an iron golem, whose only purpose is to break stuff. When you have a nation that is low on quality manpower but high on arcane resources (like Cyre, the birthplace of the warforged in Eberron), warforged are a good choice.

Also, about the revolution thing: The warforged were heavily socialized into believing that they were soulless war machines, although they were more than this. They were not taught any religion, because selling them to numerous sides in the war required the warforged to be non-religious. They were simply taught to follow their owners' orders all the time.

Mind you, mass-producing the warforged is supposedly cheaper than getting an iron golem, although the cheapest mass-produced soldiers in Eberron during the Last War were the Karrnathi undead, because you could conveniently make them after every battle.

Technically the bog-standard warforged warrior would not be able to bring down an iron golem unless it has adamantine weaponry equipped. That said, a warforged who advances enough could easily take an iron golem out. With mercenary units like the Manifest Legion (who specialize in summoning), dropping Rust Monsters on an Iron golem becomes a very cheap solution to a very expensive and impractical weapon.
Another consideration is that a vast majority of the soldiers in use during the Last War are 1st-level warriors. A 1st-level warrior who needs to eat and sleep will require more logistical support than a 1st-level warrior who needs to do neither. This is why the Warforged were so successful when they first came out: You didn't need to restrict your orders to simple "kill them all" commands, and you didn't need to feed them or make them rest. They were great for the massive running battles that figured heavily during the Last War.

Furthermore, considering that there are almost no 16th-level casters in Eberron, the creation of an iron golem was unfeasible for a large-scale war that lasted a hundred years.

It's easy to justify the Warforged in the Eberron context. Not so sure about others.

Thames
2010-12-19, 01:44 AM
I have never seen humans done well - yuck

AslanCross
2010-12-19, 01:46 AM
I don't really hate any races myself, but the one race I never allow at my table is Thri-Kreen. I don't mind the insectoid nature. I don't mind the flavor. What I do mind is how "OMG THESE GUYS ARE COOLER THAN EVERYONE ELSE LETS GIVE THEM INSANE BONUSES TO EVERYTHING AND LIKE FIVE NATURAL WEAPONS PLUS PSIONICS LOL."

Tvtyrant
2010-12-19, 01:47 AM
It's a bit odd to use a high-level demon as a measure of strength against a tribal society.


Not when they live on the same world it isn't. My point was the creatures in D&D are too dangerous to allow for tribal societies that lack high level characters to defend them. If a party of level 1's can kill them, they would have already ceased to exist.

As for the Warforged; I still disagree, and I pointed out the wand thing twice now. How long does it take a Warforged to level? If they learn at double the rate of humans say?

I don't know for sure, but I would estimate something in the decades area for a Warforged capable of killing an Iron Golem by itself. Even taking into account the ability to learn quickly on the battlefield it takes at least months to get them up to normal fighter area, much less Iron Golems, which are ready to go out of the box. How many are going to survive to reach a level where the investment makes sense? Not enough I think.

But obviously this is just my opinion, you are free to differ in yours.

ghost_warlock
2010-12-19, 01:49 AM
It's much easier for me to just list the races I do like:
Elan, gnomes, humans, kobolds, & thri-kreen.

Everything else ranges from "meh" to "purge it."

AslanCross
2010-12-19, 02:18 AM
Not when they live on the same world it isn't. My point was the creatures in D&D are too dangerous to allow for tribal societies that lack high level characters to defend them. If a party of level 1's can kill them, they would have already ceased to exist.

Balors don't exactly appear as random encounters on Ye Olde Generic Plains. Granted, you have Bullettes, Behirs, and other more common humanoid-eating monsters. I do agree with you, but I don't hate the races because of this. They just need to be written properly into the setting.



As for the Warforged; I still disagree, and I pointed out the wand thing twice now. How long does it take a Warforged to level? If they learn at double the rate of humans say?

Re: Wands: Yeah, they're cheap to make. But your average conscript soldier can't use them reliably. You have a sophisticated weapon in the hands of soldiers not trained to use them and end up with a useless investment.

Considering that humans can only fight for eight hours while warforged can fight for 24, they level at three times the rate, barring injury and death.

A disabled warforged does not bleed to death, but simply goes into power-saving mode. In the heat of battle, they are taken for dead and ignored. Some warforged even went into battle with nonlethal damage so that they get knocked into torpor instead of cut down.



I don't know for sure, but I would estimate something in the decades area for a Warforged capable of killing an Iron Golem by itself. Even taking into account the ability to learn quickly on the battlefield it takes at least months to get them up to normal fighter area, much less Iron Golems, which are ready to go out of the box. How many are going to survive to reach a level where the investment makes sense? Not enough I think.

I'll grant that, but that's if the production of Iron Golems was possible to begin with. Eberron is almost entirely a low-level world, with most people less than Lv 5. Lv 10 characters are already legendary heroes. The single Lv 16 arcane caster I know of in the setting is an ancient lich queen who does not sell her services out, and she already devised the single most cost-effective
soldier substitute in the war: Karrnathi undead.

The warforged also would not end up fighting iron golems. The power of artifice was typically on their side; the big dumb bruisers (much cheaper than Iron Golems) they had were the Warforged Titans. The Titans, however, were more primitive and less intelligent; they were definitely not as successful.

Consider this: Yes, in a contest of strength, an iron golem can definitely smash a whole battallion of Lv 1 Warforged Warriors.

However, it's clear that a small group of elite troopers can take out an iron golem on their own. An iron golem cannot make decisions to retreat or hold position; it simply keeps bashing. To intelligently direct an iron golem, it needs its creator, or some other tactical officer designated, and the commander needs to be within 60 feet of the golem to command it. This means that while the iron golem itself needs no logistical support, its tactical support needs logistical support. Yes, the golem doesn't need to sleep, but its tenders do. Thus, an iron golem can theoretically march forever, but without anyone within shouting distance to tell it to stop, it will keep doing exactly that.

It's a simple matter to sever the golem's tactical support and kite the rather slow-moving tank into a trap that it does not have the intelligence to escape. This can be accomplished by a squad of Lv 1 warforged warriors.

A squad of hundreds of warforged warriors can move as quickly as humanoids, stage intelligent hit-and-run tactics, and cover a large amount of ground due to not needing either tactical or logistical support. Cyre had very large borders, and investing in a handful of iron golems was impractical for their needs. They needed a large mobile army capable of countering the large mobile armies of other nations: Thrane had its wyvern-mounted air cavalry and Aundair had its dragonhawk-mounted air cavalry and Knight Phantoms; Karrnath had its undead, Breland had its large numbers and resources as well as goblinoid mercenaries.

Cyre had a very poor-quality professional army (because these nations were originally a single kingdom) and when the other heirs of the kingdoms seceded, most of the human resources went with them. They had to rely on the Vulcans Valenar elves, who were just in it for the lulz as fighting meant they got to cut people up. The Valenar quickly took advantage of the political instability and founded their own nation INSIDE Cyre's borders.

When House Cannith developed the warforged, it's clear why Cyre jumped at the offer. Most of the Cyran army was warforged, though House Cannith did sell significant numbers to Thrane and Breland as well.

Xuc Xac
2010-12-19, 02:31 AM
Not when they live on the same world it isn't. My point was the creatures in D&D are too dangerous to allow for tribal societies that lack high level characters to defend them. If a party of level 1's can kill them, they would have already ceased to exist.


Like commoners?

Tvtyrant
2010-12-19, 02:31 AM
However, it's clear that a small group of elite troopers can take out an iron golem on their own.

This is my big issue; when you used the wand example you used "low level soldiers" and then immediately switch back to "elite." Your troops are going to have a freakishly high mortality rate, and few of them are going to get to "elite." Few enough in fact that the Iron Golems are in the end going to out number the Warforged capable of competing with them. Yes, they level quicker then humans, but the very very few who survive aren't going to split the difference. My army with human soldiers and Iron Golem tanks is going to crush the one with human soldiers and Warforged soldiers.

I don't know the history of Eberron very well, so I cannot dispute the wizard level issue, but outside of Eberron Warforged seem silly to me. I don't play Eberron (not a fan of technomagic worlds) so I don't know if it makes sense there or not, but in a "normal" campaign setting they aren't cost effective.

I am adding Sorcerers as a race that I hate, as they are all related :P


Like commoners?

In the part you quoted I mentioned "without high level characters to protect them." Drizzt wouldn't like your commoner killing ways.

Vizzerdrix
2010-12-19, 02:47 AM
I hate humans with slightly altered features. Dwarf? humans with beards. Elves? humans with pointy ears. Gnomes? short humans. I hate all of them. This is a fantasy game. Lets see some fantastic races.

AslanCross
2010-12-19, 02:59 AM
This is my big issue; when you used the wand example you used "low level soldiers" and then immediately switch back to "elite."

Okay, my bad on that. I was sidetracked by the metagame concept of encounter levels. With encounter levels thrown out of the picture, it is still possible to deal with an iron golem even if it is not possible to physically destroy it. Physical destruction is not necessary for a tactical victory, especially with an unintelligent unit. Covering rocky ground with a slippery substance could cause the golem to simply fall over. Couple this with a deep pit trap and you've got a golem that lacks the intelligence to know to climb out of a pit.


Your troops are going to have a freakishly high mortality rate, and few of them are going to get to "elite." Few enough in fact that the Iron Golems are in the end going to out number the Warforged capable of competing with them.

I'm not sure how you're crunching these numbers. You're assuming that the soldiers only fight on an even plain with melee weapons within the range of something they know can kill them instantly.


Yes, they level quicker then humans, but the very very few who survive aren't going to split the difference. My army with human soldiers and Iron Golem tanks is going to crush the one with human soldiers and Warforged soldiers.

Again, it seems that you're assuming everybody is charging the other on an open plain here. No contest that iron golems are going to destroy warforged quickly in a straight-up fight. I already granted that point. But tactically speaking: the warforged attack the humans at night, when they're unarmed, unarmored, and sleeping, they can take out the command structure of the iron golems quickly enough to prevent any commanders from taking control of the tanks. Even if someone wakes up in time to commandeer the golems, the warforged can break the attack and run. You've now got a bunch of human soldiers who are fatigued (at Lv 1 that penalty is painful) A few hours later, the warforged come back and repeat. And they can keep this up. All night long. If the humans sleep, they're vulnerable to attack again. If they stay up, they're not at 100% anyway and are weakened.

The next day you've got fatigued soldiers, even if the warforged didn't succeed killing anyone. If the warforged keep this up another night, you've got exhausted soldiers, who move even SLOWER than the iron golem.



I don't know the history of Eberron very well, so I cannot dispute the wizard level issue, but outside of Eberron Warforged seem silly to me. I don't play Eberron (not a fan of technomagic worlds) so I don't know if it makes sense there or not, but in a "normal" campaign setting they aren't cost effective.

They do make lots of sense in the world, but probably not elsewhere. That's exactly what I was getting at. Perhaps it is your dislike of magitech worlds that makes the warforged unpalatable to you.



I am adding Sorcerers as a race that I hate, as they are all related :P

Poor sorcerers. Screwed over by game designers and now by players.
:smallfrown:

Lord.Sorasen
2010-12-19, 03:13 AM
That reminds me, I need to compare and contrast vanara and hadozee sometime.

The campaign I'm about to run has both. Both played by PCs, too.

Tvtyrant
2010-12-19, 03:15 AM
Again, it seems that you're assuming everybody is charging the other on an open plain here. No contest that iron golems are going to destroy warforged quickly in a straight-up fight. I already granted that point. But tactically speaking: the warforged attack the humans at night, when they're unarmed, unarmored, and sleeping, they can take out the command structure of the iron golems quickly enough to prevent any commanders from taking control of the tanks. Even if someone wakes up in time to commandeer the golems, the warforged can break the attack and run. You've now got a bunch of human soldiers who are fatigued (at Lv 1 that penalty is painful) A few hours later, the warforged come back and repeat. And they can keep this up. All night long. If the humans sleep, they're vulnerable to attack again. If they stay up, they're not at 100% anyway and are weakened.

The next day you've got fatigued soldiers, even if the warforged didn't succeed killing anyone. If the warforged keep this up another night, you've got exhausted soldiers, who move even SLOWER than the iron golem.

My only problems with this are:
1. Your army is lacking heavy units. Yes you can night attack my fortified camp, but you have nothing that can survive fireballs, lightning bolts, or even Cloud Kill. A medium level wizard will rip your army to shreds, and there isn't anything your low level Warforged can do about it. You simply don't have the HP to stand up to artillery.
2. The Iron Golems can be ordered to stand guard at the perimeter of the camp and then told to return to the camp wall whenever it reaches a certain distance from the camp chasing the Warforged. On top of having the normal archer guards this is going to make things costly for attacking.
3. Guerilla tactics are rarely capable of effective attack; a simply earth wall and a trench will slow them down to a crawl in an attack, which gets your men (Warforged) killed.
4. The casters. Casters are like instant death against low level troops, but not against the magic immune Iron Golems. Even at high levels Warforged are going to be weak against SoDs and AoEs that are mostly negated by the Golems.

My number crunching was based on relatively low level spells. I don't think the tactics you are suggesting are going to give you a reasonable mortality rate; I think your going to lose a lot of Warforged trying to break someone's camp. Now if you keep up constant attacks and cycle three different groups of troops in so the enemy are constantly engaged you can win the attrition war against the normal troops maybe, but since your normal troops only work 1 per day as well your going to either be heavily outnumbered or there are going to be a lot of Iron Golems (depending on the wealth of the nations involved). While they would increase at the same rate the amount of normal troops in comparison goes down; if you outnumber normal troops with the Warforged you will likely find a camp with a Golem every ten feet as a living perimeter.

Admiral Squish
2010-12-19, 03:52 AM
Okay, let's make this simpler.
WARFORGED ARE NOT MEANT TO REPLACE IRON GOLEMS. You're comparing a CR 1/2 monster versus a CR 13 monster. This is not an even match.

Yes, they both have a place in a well-made army, but think, comparatively, the time investment and cost investment difference between a human soldier and a warforged.

A human warrior requires 15 years to reach adulthood, and let's say another year beyond that to be a competent warrior. That's sixteen years. During that time, they need food, shelter, education, training, and some of them are just not going to be cut out for combat, even at the end of those 16 years. When you get down to combat, a human warrior requires food, rest, time to don armor, and is vulnerable to poisons, sleep, paralysis, disease, nausea, and fatigue in all it's forms.

A warforged can be built whenever you need it and it takes slightly less time to train a warforged for war, since you don't have to break them of commoner habits. That's maybe a year total from the time you order him. They need no food, no education beyond the training given, no shelter, and no water. You've already saved a HUGE portion of the costs of an army, both in time and in money. Then, you factor in the publicity ratings. Nobody likes the duke who sent his son off to war. So, if they can make a machine to do it, why not? Once trained and ready, a warforged can march day and night, doubling or even tripling the speed of a human troop, they never need to take time to put on armor, since it's bolted to their flesh, they never need to sleep and have no need for supply lines since they don't eat or drink. In battle, a warforged can wade through poisonous gasses, sleep spells, disease-infested water, foul stenches, and never ever need a day off.

Overall, the cost of a warforged versus the cost of a human troop is probably just about even, with the warforged coming out slightly ahead in the long run since you don't need to pay for food. For time investment, the warforged have no competition. The tactical advantages make warforged troops massively more valuable than a troop of comparable human soldiers.

Tvtyrant
2010-12-19, 04:22 AM
I'm backing out of this because of derailment. PM any further is further arguments to me :P