Races, Races everywhere, but man do I hate those guys!

[Tanuki Tales]

This thread is simply about discussing which races (or civilizations or societal organization or whatever you have that's similar in concept), from any tabletop game, that you find yourself deeply disliking or outright hating. This can be for aesthetic reasons, for reasons of logic, for clashing for morals, for just not liking them or for what ever else reason you can come up with.

I'll start us off by listing the two races that I dislike across gaming:

• Elves
• Orc

I dislike the former because they just tend to be so generic across the board. But unlike the dwarves (at least to me), who have some redeeming and good humanizing characteristics, Elves come across as just a gaggle of pseudo-intellectual semi-immortals who love nature and think every other races is either vermin or just morons. They seem to epitomize some of the most negative aspects of modern civilization but get praised for it and/or it's treated as their selling point.

I dislike the latter because they usually end up being blood hungry, rape happy savages who "just want to watch the world burn". They epitomize the negative aspects about primitive cultures, are practically always the bog standard bad guy minion and have zero value in the worth of their lives in the eyes of many player groups.

It's little wonder that the only versions I like of the above come from Warhammer 40k and Eberron. In the former, the Space Elves are manipulative jerks and holier than thou, but they're also responsible for 40k being the crap sack world it is. They aren't treated as something to be idolized by the other races in the setting and are just as bad as any of the others. They're flawed, they're fallen and they're recovering baby eating serial killer rapists. And the Orks are just the comedy relief in the setting, are fungus people and ironically are the ones most naturally approaching anything you could call a Utopia.

In the latter, Elves are basically either klingons or tomb kings. Orcs on the other hand are the druidic peaceful race that are in tune with nature and just want generally to be left to go about their business.

[Segev]

Half-vampires, in just about any setting. Vampires don't work that way.

[Black Jester]

I don't dislike Orks (or any form of replacement Orcs, like goblins, hobgoblins or the like) per say, but there are some forms I can hardly stand, namely the one-dimensional ones. The whole idea of one-note, no-mercy deserving savage brutes with little to no redeeming qualities who are acceptable swordfodder - that kind I loath, not because of themselves, but it combines an undifferentiated adaption of the obviously racist source material with lazy writing, gamemastering or storytelling in general.

Likewise, I don't dislike Elves by default, but heavy handed noble savage stereotypes (for extra bonus points combined with a clumsy environmental message) who are just as one note and stupidly idolized are annoying.

And no, I have nothing against environmentalist messages. I just don't like stupidly heavy-handed and preachy ones.

You can make Orks and their lookalikes (seriously, why are here sooo many pseudo-orks anyway?) multidimensional with strengths and flaws and therefore interesting and generally great. You can make Elves multidimensional with strengths and flaws and therefore interesting and generally great. You can even treat boring old humans as multidimensional with strengths and flaws and therefore interesting and generally great. The problem is not the race per say, it's bad and lazy writing (or gamemastering, or storytelling in general).

Half-vampires, in just about any setting. Vampires don't work that way.

Actually, the whole dhampir concept is older than most modern concepts of vampires and has a more incubus/succubus background to it, because adding sex to a scary story, just makes it creepier and juicier, you know?

[The_Werebear]

I can't do elves without making them terrible people. They are usually Abusive Precursors in my settings. If they aren't, it's because they don't exist or are being the Evil Empire.

[Yora]

Do Kender count? I think Kender shouldn't count. Kender are not a race, they are a cruel joke to make fun of any RPG player with an IQ in the two or three digit range.

Races I don't like:

Dwarves: Racist, alchoholic, scottish-viking miners. Which applies to 99% of all dwarf character and dwarf cultures in any fantasy worlds ever. It might have worked once, or maybe twice. But it just doesn't work 59 times.

High Elves: Or, since we're ranting about stereotypes here, Nazi-elves. Those guys who are the best mages, lives the longest, and hate all non-elven races and despise all wood-elves and those sub-elven peasants.
If that's what the creator aims for, that's okay. The second age Noldor from Middle Earth and the Thalmor from Skyrim are meant to be evil genocidal bastards who have the most in common with drow. But they just don't work in any way as a shining example of elven perfection. (Well presented wood elves who cut trees for wood and hunt animals for food I like very much, though. One of my favorite races.)

I think that's pretty much all I actively dislike. All others I simply don't care for.

[Segev]

Actually, the whole dhampir concept is older than most modern concepts of vampires and has a more incubus/succubus background to it, because adding sex to a scary story, just makes it creepier and juicier, you know?

If you want "children as a mark of the sexual indiscretion," go for an incubus or succubus, not a vampire. Vampires are about predation, sexual or otherwise. They, better than "infected" zombies, are the plague, the STD, the curse.

Incubi are the "leave the woman to raise the child alone" source, particularly with the "and the kid has unusual, perhaps dangerous traits" tacked on.

[Scow2]

Meh.... I usually get around the 'hippy Elf problem' by emphasizing that they are more like the Moon than any animal: They're guardians of nature, but explicitly not part of it (Just like how the moon isn't affected by predation, seasonal changes, weather, or anything like that). They are most definitely not "one with nature" - They have absolutely no role in the ecosystem at all except as Troubleshooters when things start to go 'wrong' (For a given definition of such). Of course... there is a lot going for elven perfection (Elves are wiser than humans? No **** - wisdom comes with age and experience, and elves have lived several human lifetimes to learn. Oh, they're good with magic, but any human can beat their skull in... congratulations, humans have all the civility and intellect of a savage animal)

Elves are best when they're portrayed as otherworldly and different, which 90% of D&D fails to do.

On the subject of "Dwarves are racist" - Of course they are. To deny the objective superiority of dwarves is to wallow in ignorance.

[DefKab]

Oh, this one's an easy one... Gnomes... I HATE gnomes.
What the heck are gnomes, anyway? Halflings with big noses?
Tiny Elves?
Portrayed as tinkerers? Magicians?
Heck, they're the Ferengi of the Fantasy world, and I hate the Ferengi too...

No, My biggest problem with the gnome is that almost every other race in DnD has a root in literature somewhere. Some kind of link to a myth, or story... The gnomes could be Leprechauns, but they're not... They're... Well, they're nothing really...
The only literature they could play off of is David the Gnome... 3 inches tall, with a 3 inch hat? That's a fancily dressed Pixie...
They have NO place in a fantasy setting. Get rid of them.

[Black Jester]

If you want "children as a mark of the sexual indiscretion," go for an incubus or succubus, not a vampire. Vampires are about predation, sexual or otherwise. They, better than "infected" zombies, are the plague, the STD, the curse.

Incubi are the "leave the woman to raise the child alone" source, particularly with the "and the kid has unusual, perhaps dangerous traits" tacked on.

Hey, I just mentioned that the concept is older than most modern vampire myths. Or do you expect the Balkanians to retroactively adjust their folklore to make it fit better with Stoker's novel or literally thousands of different movies and tales over the last 100 years? And if so, which ones?
At this point (especially if you include the actual folklore), Vampires are utterly arbitrary and can have or lack about any ability you want them to have or lack. They are conveniently adjustable to your specific story needs, and complaining that this or that is not a proper vampire makes as much sense as complaining that this or that is not a proper depiction of magic.

[The Rose Dragon]

I dislike the Linowan. Those boat-dwelling bastards.

[Scow2]

Oh, this one's an easy one... Gnomes... I HATE gnomes.
What the heck are gnomes, anyway? Halflings with big noses?
Tiny Elves?
Portrayed as tinkerers? Magicians?
Heck, they're the Ferengi of the Fantasy world, and I hate the Ferengi too...

No, My biggest problem with the gnome is that almost every other race in DnD has a root in literature somewhere. Some kind of link to a myth, or story... The gnomes could be Leprechauns, but they're not... They're... Well, they're nothing really...
The only literature they could play off of is David the Gnome... 3 inches tall, with a 3 inch hat? That's a fancily dressed Pixie...
They have NO place in a fantasy setting. Get rid of them.

The ironic part here is that Gnomes have an even stronger root in fantasy and mythology than Elves and Halflings combined. In fact, MOST elves from myths and legends are closer to D&D Gnomes than they are to D&D Elves.

[Morgarion]

I turned elves into generally diabolical hedonists who had fueled an empire with human slaves upon losing their immortality. They were far too effete to actually capture the slaves themselves, so they purchased them from the opportunistic and amoral halflings.

While I generally don't have very high regard for the non-core classes and races, I'm particularly not impressed with Paizo's take on gnomes. The whole fey in exile thing just doesn't jive with me. Another thing that irks me is the inclusion of the tiefling as a standard playable race, especially given the change in direction from a planetouched being vaguley inhuman to essentially looking like a fiendish half dragon. It's not as subtle or interesting.

[LibraryOgre]

Do Kender count? I think Kender shouldn't count. Kender are not a race, they are a cruel joke to make fun of any RPG player with an IQ in the two or three digit range.

So, anywhere between 10 and 999?

[Segev]

Hey, I just mentioned that the concept is older than most modern vampire myths. Or do you expect the Balkanians to retroactively adjust their folklore to make it fit better with Stoker's novel or literally thousands of different movies and tales over the last 100 years? And if so, which ones?
At this point (especially if you include the actual folklore), Vampires are utterly arbitrary and can have or lack about any ability you want them to have or lack. They are conveniently adjustable to your specific story needs, and complaining that this or that is not a proper vampire makes as much sense as complaining that this or that is not a proper depiction of magic.

Just because their folklore is older than the one I like doesn't mean I have to like their folklore. :P

This is a thread about opinions. I've shared mine, and the reasons for them.



Similarly, but for different reasons, I dislike half-castes in Exalted. Celestial Exaltation is not hereditary, and a Celestial Exalt is still human, so his kids should be, too.

[Tanuki Tales]

I know a thread is going right when I have to open a tab for a wiki to understand the conversation.

Now I'm going back to the Exalted wiki.

[Ceiling_Squid]

I don't mind common fantasy tropes, so long as there's an interesting twist or two to shake things up from time-to-time. I can handle post-Tolkein dwarves and elves just fine, though it sounds like a lot of people are...less than enthused for typical DnD fare.

What kills me is some of the stuff that came OUT of early DnD-related literature directly.

In particular, the Drow.

Can't stand them, and the fact that they're so damn popular with players. This isn't about Drizzt clones most of the time, the entire Drow race is flawed from the ground up.

How does an entire race of evil backstabbers persist as a society without collapsing? They're boring, morally bankrupt, completely one-note "for the evuls" in most of their doings, and serve as a player excuse for disruptively-evil behavior. They also led to the unfortunate tendency for writers to come up with "evil-opposites" for every other race just to fill a perceived gap, and with very inconsistent degrees of success.

Thankfully the Dark Elf concept has been reworked a few times and toned down. I like the Dunmer of the Elder Scrolls series. They're unusual, often distrusted by the other races due to their appearance, and have a culture and mindset largely alien to the other races, but they aren't an evil-opposite of "standard" elves. Their culture of ancestor worship also gave them an interesting angle of religious conflict with the pervading Pantheon of the Nine Divines, without having them worship some kind of inherently evil god. Religious conflict that isn't just black-and-white alignment clashing is something DnD needs to explore more often. Rival faiths and pantheons and such.

[The Rose Dragon]

Similarly, but for different reasons, I dislike half-castes in Exalted. Celestial Exaltation is not hereditary, and a Celestial Exalt is still human, so his kids should be, too.

Things that are also not hereditary:

Being a spirit (elementals and some demons excluded).
Being raksha.
Being a ghost.

[Scots Dragon]

So, anywhere between 10 and 999?

People with four-digit IQs, on the other hand, like to troll everyone in the lower group and therefore adore Kenders. Ironically they're also the only people smart enough to play actual Kenders along the lines of Tasslehoff Burrfoot rather than the insane uber-kleptomaniac types that most Dragonlance groups tend to acquire.

[Logic]

*Snip*
Elves come across as just a gaggle of pseudo-intellectual semi-immortals who love nature and think every other races is either vermin or just morons.

This is the same reason I hate elves, as they are portrayed by an annoyingly large number of my former players and/or DMs.

...they usually end up being blood hungry, rape happy savages who "just want to watch the world burn"

This is usually because settings need villains, and Orcs are easy to paint into a corner. Plus, primitive=BAD in many minds.

[Ceiling_Squid]

This is usually because settings need villains, and Orcs are easy to paint into a corner. Plus, primitive=BAD in many minds.

All too true. Primitivity should be a morality-neutral feature. I also get similarly sick of the opposite problem, which is the morally-superior "noble savage" archetype that wood elves and druids have going for them in some settings.

[Yora]

This is the same reason I hate elves, as they are portrayed by an annoyingly large number of my former players and/or DMs.

When I started working on my setting, which basically is a somewhat "generic" fantasy world but set in a period before the old civilization collapsed and humans took over everything, one of the very first thing I decited to do is always calling them "wood elves" and "dark elves". As a constant reminder to not allow them to slip back into those racially superior high elves and racially superior evul drow.

I always liked this image of an elf:

Spoiler

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And also this image of gnomes:

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Now that's something I like to create a setting with.

Some other races that never really did it for me are the Archons and Modrons from Planescape. The other six main planar races are all cool in their way, but these ones just meh...

Also something that always makes me unhappy: Dragonborn. Or what these 3rd Edition template cheese-wheels are called. It seems that nobody ever considers them for their backstory, but they are always brought up to get some cheap bonuses. That you become a kind of dragon-person, who cares?

[Agrippa]

If you don't like the mindless, forrest burning and rape happy orcs you can turn orcs into magically engineered Pinkerton goon squads instead.

[Tanuki Tales]

If you don't like the mindless, forrest burning and rape happy orcs you can turn orcs into magically engineered Pinkerton goon squads instead.

Excuse me?

[BWR]

A common opinion here seems to be "we don't like Tolkien's elves and orcs".
An interesting opinion.
Not that I'm saying it's a bad one or anything, just one I have a hard time understanding.

[Tanuki Tales]

A common opinion here seems to be "we don't like Tolkien's elves and orcs".
An interesting opinion.
Not that I'm saying it's a bad one or anything, just one I have a hard time understanding.

I don't mind Tolkie's Orcs because there's context and explanation for why they are the way they are. The Dark God and his Fallen Angel right hand man tortured and corrupted elves into degenerate monsters and then mind controlled them to be even worse. That makes sense and can be compelling characterization.

But when Orcs are monsters for no other apparent reason than for giggles? That's what I hate.

[The_Werebear]

A common opinion here seems to be "we don't like Tolkien's elves and orcs".
An interesting opinion.
Not that I'm saying it's a bad one or anything, just one I have a hard time understanding.

I don't mind Tolkien's Elves. They are literally of another world. They're ethereal, wise, responsible, and (most importantly) fallible. They do their best, and are very good, but they aren't perfect.

Most Fantasy derivation of Elves that I end up rebelling against tend to lean Heavily on the "Can't Argue with Elves" (TV tropes required reading if you have all day to be lost there)

That, and I am rather Dwarfy at heart.

[LibraryOgre]

People with four-digit IQs, on the other hand, like to troll everyone in the lower group and therefore adore Kenders. Ironically they're also the only people smart enough to play actual Kenders along the lines of Tasslehoff Burrfoot rather than the insane uber-kleptomaniac types that most Dragonlance groups tend to acquire.

I have pretty much one friend I will allow to play a kender without reservation, though with my standing rules (i.e. "You do not get to choose when you use your racial abilities; they're there at your call and at mine.")

His playing a kender cleric of Mishakal wound up with him hiding in a tree while the Knight of the Crown threatened him with murder.

[Segev]

Things that are also not hereditary:

Being a spirit (elementals and some demons excluded).
Being raksha.

Ah, but these fall into the "humans can breed with anything" trope, and are genre-ok. Note that they aren't human to begin with.

Exalted are. They shouldn't be having half-exalted children. You either are Exalted, or you're not, and the only Exaltation that is even remotely inherited is Dragonblooded.

Being a ghost.

Honestly, ghost-blooded bug me, too.

[Slipperychicken]

I find that orcs often function much like androids and zombies do: as human-shaped, yet dehumanized, punching-bags. The protagonist gets to enact graphic violence on these person-shaped targets without moral consequence, and you (the audience) get to revel carefree in the bloodshed, having been assured that "they're not really people, so it's okay to kill them".

[Brookshw]

Oh, this one's an easy one... Gnomes... I HATE gnomes.
What the heck are gnomes, anyway? Halflings with big noses?
Tiny Elves?
Portrayed as tinkerers? Magicians?
Heck, they're the Ferengi of the Fantasy world, and I hate the Ferengi too...

No, My biggest problem with the gnome is that almost every other race in DnD has a root in literature somewhere. Some kind of link to a myth, or story... The gnomes could be Leprechauns, but they're not... They're... Well, they're nothing really...
The only literature they could play off of is David the Gnome... 3 inches tall, with a 3 inch hat? That's a fancily dressed Pixie...
They have NO place in a fantasy setting. Get rid of them.

Seconded, and thank you!