Variety of enemy races within the PFS scenarios

[Jeff Way]

Let me start out by saying that I absolutly love playing Pathfinder and the biggest reason is the way society play is set up. I have never been much of a RPG person until I started in PFS.
A couple of weeks ago I had a new player building a ranger ask me what her first favored enemy should be. Everyone around immediatly said undead. I told her human. It seems that the only non-creature we fight is human. Every thug, brute, henchman or evil minion is human. Yes, there are a few exceptions (maybe 5 out of the 90ish scenarios), but as a whole, its only human. I know that humans are the dominate race in Golorian, but for them to be the only core race that can be a thug is just a little boring. There are elves, dwarfs, gnomes, halflings and half-orcs in Golorian also. It is kinda hard to believe that none of these races can lower themselves to the level of a thug. Even most of the bosses seem to be human also.
So, I guess all I am asking is a little more variety on the races of our enemies.

[Cpt_kirstov]

2 half orc goon,
1 elf encounter,
2 halfling

and thats the first 29 scenarios (season 0 + shipyard rats). Note: at least 2 of these had no humanoid encounters at all.

[Drogon]

I agree with this sentiment. I'm starting to see rangers pretty regularly as secondary or tertiary characters with established players, and all of them have "human" as a favored enemy. There are a lot of players merely dipping into ranger to get the human favored enemy for rogues, fighters, paladins, etc. Even I am guilty of this.

Magic, and other collectible card games, have an unspoken rule: if a certain card is always showing up in the winning decks, then that card is likely broken. I think this kind of thing qualifies, for purposes of this discussion. If the only "correct" choice is always the same choice that every player makes, something is wrong.

On a side note, it's also surprising to me how many of one particular subterranean race there are. So many scenarios utilize them that I was thinking of hosting a "GM clinic" just so that GMs could be trained on how to fight with them. They are one of those creatures that, if you just go toe to toe, you lose outright. Use their special abilities, though, and you can at least make it interesting. And most GMs don't use them correctly, instead just slugging it out. But, seriously, Paizo seems to love their:

spoiler:

morlocks

[Mad Alchemist]

Drogon wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

Localy I have a reputation for how I run those.

[Jeff Way]

Well thank you for the list Capt.

That just make my point even more. So in the first 29 senarios you counted 5 encounters that have core races that are not human. With 4 encounters written for every scenario (on average) that makes that 5 out of 116 encounters. Thats a 4% rate. I know that many have creatures/undead to fight also. Now I do not know how many encounters were with humans in that same span, but I will venture to guess that it is around 50%.

Now the reason I posted is not to simply complain, but to maybe grab the attention of a PFS staff member and make them go "oohhh". I know humans are a blank slate for a writer to quickly build upon. There is no racial traits to deal with or have to factor in. Like I said in my previous post, I know that humans are the most populated race. I just looking for PFS to strive to balance it out just a little. Of the encounters that will involve a thug, maybe a 30/70 slit on core race/human encounters.

[Mark Moreland]

Keep in mind that Golarion is a humanocentric world, and unless the story needs an NPC to be another race, we're more than likely to put a human in than a gnome or elf or dwarf or whatever.