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Powergamers concerned with min/maxing so they can get the feat. That's who.
Seriously though, from a RP standpoint, humans have little to offer someone looking to build an interesting character. Yes you can build a human with a deep story but they simply lack the flavor that anything else has. They are generic, and very copy/paste feeling.
A Dwarf, an Elf, and a Human walk into a tavern. The Dwarf orders a drink and starts chatting up the locals. The Elf hits on the waitress and works his way over to the entertainment to relax. The Human searches for a bulletin board, and failing that grills the bartender for rumors of dangerous creatures with bounties on their heads.
My opinion, feel free to chip in but... I don't see the appeal in playing a Human past a dungeon crawler. Humans make better Roll-players than Role-players.
Your thoughts? What has your experience been?
Powergamers concerned with min/maxing so they can get the feat. That's who.
Seriously though, from a RP standpoint, humans have little to offer someone looking to build an interesting character. Yes you can build a human with a deep story but they simply lack the flavor that anything else has. They are generic, and very copy/paste feeling.
A Dwarf, an Elf, and a Human walk into a tavern. The Dwarf orders a drink and starts chatting up the locals. The Elf hits on the waitress and works his way over to the entertainment to relax. The Human searches for a bulletin board, and failing that grills the bartender for rumors of dangerous creatures with bounties on their heads.
My opinion, feel free to chip in but... I don't see the appeal in playing a Human past a dungeon crawler. Humans make better Roll-players than Role-players.
Your thoughts? What has your experience been?
I see no difference in RP potential. Why is the human less interesting? What stops him from doing the same things the dwarf and the elf just did? There are also some who think the human has fallen behind from a mechanics viewpoint. I don't agree but the thread is around here somewhere.
I could give two farts about power gaming, but humans are my race of choice. Why? Because they have the most interesting character. I've played everything from an Inuit shamanism inspired mystic thaurge(the closest build i could make at the time) through a arcanopunk private Eye in sharn, and playing humans meant I didn't have to carry around all that baggage that comes with the other core races. Human PCs have richer characters, because we are more able to idenitify with them, besides, in most DnD, the none humans are really just humans with bit stuck on, not truly inhuman members of magical and alien species. Give me something with a little more bite to roleplay than the core races and i'll consider moving away from the humans.
I think rp potential is equal among all the races. I mean unless you rigidly stick to race stereotypes, why is it that you would play a human any different then any other race? In fact humans have the most rp potential because they are generally free of those stereotypes in most settings.
And certainly humans are mechanically flexible. But i would think if you were going 'pure' powergamer, the elf wizard, or dwarf cleric would come up really often since they are so well tailored to the class. Or the elf rogue for that matter. Or the half elf multiclass character.
Nah, I don't see. It's slightly bent the other direction. A lot of serious role players choose human. Humans are obviously easier to identify with, most fantasy heroes are humans, and real role players will work to break away from stereotypes (the dandy elf, the boozing dwarf, etc.).
I personally find it bizarre that humans being less stereotyped than the demi-humans would be used to portray them as being boring to play. If you set out to play a ¨generic Human¨ (impossible in Pathfinder`s Golarion full of nations and ethnicities), then sure, you`re going to have a boring result. I wouldn`t be much more impressed with an effort to play a generic demi-Human, though.
A Dwarf, an Elf, and a Human walk into a tavern. The Dwarf orders a drink and starts chatting up the locals. The Elf hits on the waitress and works his way over to the entertainment to relax. The Human searches for a bulletin board, and failing that grills the bartender for rumors of dangerous creatures with bounties on their heads.
What is the point of this quote? Are you saying Elves always act this way in your game, or what? Wouldn`t that get a bit old... after a couple centuries? And your ¨generic Human¨ never chats up the locals or hits on the waitress? What is wrong with them? Your Human characters are walking around with such glaring psychological defects (autism?) but you think they`re not interesting to roleplay?
If you`re interested in playing a multitude of roles, there`s nothing about Humans stopping you from doing so. For one, I would bet most posters replying will have played a Human character who: bought beer and chatted up the locals, as well as hit on the waitress before socializing with the entertainers. Which leaves your Elf and Dwarf characters dead-even with Humans in terms of interest/boring-ness.
I find it pretty obvious that one could cut out demi-Human races from the game entirely, have all PCs be Humans, and role playing would not be any worse for it... I`m aware of plenty of game systems where that is essentially the base assumption, in fact.
Powergamers concerned with min/maxing so they can get the feat. That's who.
Seriously though, from a RP standpoint, humans have little to offer someone looking to build an interesting character. Yes you can build a human with a deep story but they simply lack the flavor that anything else has. They are generic, and very copy/paste feeling.
A Dwarf, an Elf, and a Human walk into a tavern. The Dwarf orders a drink and starts chatting up the locals. The Elf hits on the waitress and works his way over to the entertainment to relax. The Human searches for a bulletin board, and failing that grills the bartender for rumors of dangerous creatures with bounties on their heads.
My opinion, feel free to chip in but... I don't see the appeal in playing a Human past a dungeon crawler. Humans make better Roll-players than Role-players.
Your thoughts? What has your experience been?
In my opinion, your opinion is short-sighted and stinks.
I know a couple of very experienced roleplayers who absolutely refuse to ever play a Dwarf or an Elf again, because in their experience playing characters of either race automatically make them feel constrained by certain archetypes, whereas it is accepted that humans are so varied that anything goes.
Bah, humans are just as good as their players are. Just like with any other race.
I do like playing the hooman race. They are good for power-hungry archetypes, lacking the care-free natures of the halflings and gnomes (we tend to take ourselves rather seriously) and patience of the longer lived races. Humans are natural adventurers, living at faster pace, they also make good thrill-seekers. Humans really lack any racial archetype aside from versatility and "life is too short" attitude.
Nah, I don't see. It's slightly bent the other direction. A lot of serious role players choose human. Humans are obviously easier to identify with, most fantasy heroes are humans, and real role players will work to break away from stereotypes (the dandy elf, the boozing dwarf, etc.).
+1, Easier to relate too
Since I started in Pathfinder, I mostly play humans. This is due to lack of choices though. I never was fond of playing a half-orc. I am an extreme racist when it comes to elves, this dates all the way back to EQ and other games that ruined elves for me. Until Paizo comes out with some new races, my self imposed limited selection coupled with what Darth Borehd said about its easier to relate to humans makes it a very appealing race to play.
In many campaigns I've run or played in, it seemed there were always elves everywhere. Sometimes there'd be the player that only plays elves, sometimes the DM would have mostly elven NPCs, etc. The fact that there were so many elves crawling around made me want to play a dwarf or a human or whatever to be different, if anything . . .
. . . and then it seemed like everyone was playing dwarves . . . or tieflings . . . or (insert random race here) . . .
In the end, I just defaulted to humans, because it seemed nobody wanted to play them, and I got used to playing them. But this was in the camaigns I was involved in; players' motivations vary from person to person and from group to group.
I don't consider myself a powergamer or min/maxer at all, but I play humans. Heck, the last human PC I created had Persuasion as her bonus feat! :)
I enjoy playing humans. More now with the +2 attribute of course, but overall I just really like them. The only close-second I had was one specific halfling wizard.. but I didn't exactly play him "halfling" like (except for his size).
I do not like the game racial stereotypes- or those that would be naturally imposed on them. (the oddness of the longer lived races, etc..).
Humans Have no stereotype. And I love that. No one can tell me I'm playing one wrong :)
-S
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Powergamers concerned with min/maxing so they can get the feat. That's who.
It all depends. A human can mimic nearly any build. I will use an Inquisitor as an Example. This Inquisitor's focus will be on High Saving Throws and High Perception, while keeping skills in general high and HP steady.
Elf - +2 vs Enchantment, +1 Ref, -1 Fort, +2 Keen senses, +1 Skill pts for Int bonus, +1 HPs per level for Favored to cancel Con hit.
Human - Extra Feat (Alertness, Skill Focus Perception or Saving Throw Boost), +1 Skill Points Regardless, +1 HP for Favored, +2 to Dex to shore up AC and Ref save.
If you look at this, they are about equal. The Elf gets some nice natural abilities that the Human would have to use his feat to equal (and eventually exceed) but the Elf has to juggle his stats around to get what the human has naturally.
Also, as you slowly level you find the human slowly gaining advantage as gear starts to fill in the deficiencies but the other races never truly lose their edge.
NOTE: I actually play an Elf Inquisitor and now looking, It would have been far more 'power-gamery' of me to take an Half Elf since I am about to multi-class at 13.
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My main contention with human is that because of the vanilla flavor have the players have a MUCH easier time of using that as an excuse to be lazy with them. They take the freedom and diversity as meaning that they can sit and play the system as opposed to the game.
In my experience I have had maybe 2 boring characters among elf, dwarf, gnome, etc. in my games, but I've had a dozen+ powergaming boring tofu-grey humans trying to turn the game into a battle sim.
In response to people complaining about players complaining about the archetypes-Giving player constrains helps move a player towards a personality and identity. Human has no such limitations, and even if they try to use the variety of local variances available to them in the PFC book, they all blend together.
This is not to say that everyone who chooses human is this way, but it is for sure a warning light that we have a die rolling automaton on our hands, and not a PC.
I've seen this at local games, conventions, and at my own table. The reason I love Pathfinder so much is that it helps bring some more balance to the equation with the depth that Golarion has and the (slightly) more balanced racials. This and the fact that we can say what is CORE, and a million splat-books aren't being published that cut away at the flesh with powercreep every month or so.
This problem has a legacy behind it with 3.X and shaking the dust loose of the carpet is going to be quite a bit of work.
No offense meant to anyone, I only intend to spark discussion.
Edit: Trolling is far from where this sparks. Getting your hooks into somebody right away is the first thing they teach you when you are writing and if you take that as inflammatory then again apologies have been issued. I should very much hope that this strikes anybody as a personal attack or an trying to upset.
TMS
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In short:
It's harder to role play humans because there is no simple stereotype to build from.
Maybe it is a little harder *shrug* I would counter that if you are playing the boring stereotypes then you aren't really role playing either. Role playing isn't about what the race/ class brings to the table, it's about what the player brings to the table.
Also, what Quandry said.
My main contention with human is that because of the vanilla flavor have the players have a MUCH easier time of using that as an excuse to be lazy with them. They take the freedom and diversity as meaning that they can sit and play the system as opposed to the game.
In my experience I have had maybe 2 boring characters among elf, dwarf, gnome, etc. in my games, but I've had a dozen+ powergaming boring tofu-grey humans trying to turn the game into a battle sim.
In response to people complaining about players complaining about the archetypes-Giving player constrains helps move a player towards a personality and identity. Human has no such limitations, and even if they try to use the variety of local variances available to them in the PFC book, they all blend together.
This is not to say that everyone who chooses human is this way, but it is for sure a warning light that we have a die rolling automaton on our hands, and not a PC.I've seen this at local games, conventions, and at my own table. The reason I love Pathfinder so much is that it helps bring some more balance to the equation with the depth that Golarion has and the (slightly) more balanced racials. This and the fact that we can say what is CORE, and a million splat-books aren't being published that cut away at the flesh with powercreep every month or so.
This problem has a legacy behind it with 3.X and shaking the dust loose of the carpet is going to be quite a bit of work.No offense meant to anyone, I only intend to spark discussion.
Edit: Trolling is far from where this sparks. Getting your hooks into somebody right away is the first thing they teach you when you are writing and if you take that as inflammatory then again apologies have been issued. I should very much hope that this strikes anybody as a personal attack or an trying to upset.
TMS
Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Bad roleplayers will be bad roleplayers with any class. Just because there are possibly more characterization tropes (or cliches, depending on how you look at it....), to latch onto with certain races does not mean that that is meaningful or well-felt characterization. The dwarf who loves beer is no more interesting, and in some cases far more tired than the vanilla human. I've played with limited roleplayers who played the Gnomish Bard the exact same way they play the Human Sorcerer, and I've seen good roleplayers shine with every single race, including humans.
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In short:
It's harder to role play humans because there is no simple stereotype to build from.
Maybe it is a little harder *shrug* I would counter that if you are playing the boring stereotypes then you aren't really role playing either. Role playing isn't about what the race/ class brings to the table, it's about what the player brings to the table.
Also, what Quandry said.
More like playing a human encourages LAZY roleplaying is what I am getting at.
Edit to prevent 1:1 post ratio-
It's like you have two plots of land to build a home on with reasonable budget. One is a flat, plain field. More often than not you will end up with a house with 4 sides, 2 floors and a basement. One will usually end up looking like another with minor differences, and the occasional outlier.
Now you have another plot of land with a cliff-face, a large hill in the middle of it, and a swampy lake. Building a home here you will end up being evoked with a whole variety of different layouts, taking advantage of the landscape or working around its unique features.
To me I see limitations as opportunities and complete freedom as a chance to just glide with whatever.
Much the same issue as players who want to play CN PC's... Swear to Iomedae if I see one more CN Human fighter or rogue I am going to snap...
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More like playing a human encourages LAZY roleplaying is what I am getting at.
How? Because you don't have a template to work from? Maybe you need to get more into the campaign setting and find a region that interests you. I know in PFS the factions tend to encourage people to role play a bit more than generic "I'm a human".
I have seen little evidence in play of better role playing from people playing elves or dwarfs than humans.
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My main contention with human is that because of the vanilla flavor have the players have a MUCH easier time of using that as an excuse to be lazy with them. They take the freedom and diversity as meaning that they can sit and play the system as opposed to the game.
You can't roleplay elf lazily? Dwarf lazily? If anything, I would think they'd be much lazier roleplays.
In my experience I have had maybe 2 boring characters among elf, dwarf, gnome, etc. in my games, but I've had a dozen+ powergaming boring tofu-grey humans trying to turn the game into a battle sim.
I've gotta say, I've had the exact opposite experience. Those who pick elves and dwarves in the group that I play tend to do so because they don't have to come up with something interesting... they're just "the dwarf" or just "the elf". What does that even mean? Well, you've got a basic stereotype, not a character. Don't even get me started on "the Half-orc", the character who could have some of the most interesting RP situations trying to avoid them because they just want to hit things.
That said, I've seen some interesting characters come from any and all races. It has everything to do with the player and nothing to do with the race. My group tends to be RP Heavy, if your experience is different then the likely difference is going to be the players and not the races.
In response to people complaining about players complaining about the archetypes-Giving player constrains helps move a player towards a personality and identity. Human has no such limitations, and even if they try to use the variety of local variances available to them in the PFC book, they all blend together.
This is not to say that everyone who chooses human is this way, but it is for sure a warning light that we have a die rolling automaton on our hands, and not a PC.
Again, this sounds like the players are the issue and not the characters. You've got people who are milking things for all they're worth and people who are trying to RP. If you told your party that they couldn't play humans anymore, do you think this would stop your min/maxers from doing just that? Don't you think they'd find a way to do it without playing a human then?
No offense meant to anyone, I only intend to spark discussion.
It's a good thing to bring up, but I think the real question you're asking... or what you're starting to get at is: How do I encourage roleplaying?
I reward inventive, creative, deep and serious roleplaying with a number of things. I give extra gold, allow allies to help out that PC, give them an arbitrary +2 they can use whenever on a skill check or attack roll. Other GMs give out extra experience points. It's about giving them that sense of accomplishment, they'll have much more fun.
The biggest thing to remember is that roleplayer's need time. If a person finds themselves without the time they need to play their character they'll need to find a new way to feel that sense of accomplishment. Min/Maxers can RP, they just must be encouraged to do so in some cases.
Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Bad roleplayers will be bad roleplayers with any class. Just because there are possibly more characterization tropes (or cliches, depending on how you look at it....), to latch onto with certain races does not mean that that is meaningful or well-felt characterization. The dwarf who loves beer is no more interesting, and in some cases far more tired than the vanilla human. I've played with limited roleplayers who played the Gnomish Bard the exact same way they play the Human Sorcerer, and I've seen good roleplayers shine with every single race, including humans.
+1
The problem is not with the race, it's with the players. EVERY race has the potential for power gaming and lazy role-playing, Humans may just stand out to you because they don't have the stereotypes to fall back on. Bad roleplayers who pick other races have stereotypes they can fall back on, both as a way to PRETEND to be roleplaying ("Look how elven I am! Prance prance prance", or "I'm a Dwarven iconoclast! Prance prance prance"), or as an excuse to cover up bad roleplaying ("Why did you rusah into combat? We should have tried to negotiate." "I'm a dwarf, we don't negotiate with orcs."). Human characters don't provide such easy cut-out character hooks, and so when a poor roleplayer chooses one, their deficiencies become more glaring.
Playing a human doesn't encourage lazy roleplaying, it just makes it more obvious.
I usually play humans...and not for the extra feat. I'll humbly offer that the human paladin I'm playing now is at least as interesting as the party members of other races, and possibly more so. For me it's harder to get into playing a member of another race without slipping at least a little into cliche. I can play a pretty wide range of humans. I've met a few more of them that I have elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. so I don't have to resort to fulfilling quite as many stereotypes. The same goes for gender with me. Sure, I've met lots of women but I don't claim to understand *any* of them (my wife included).
M
Historically in D&d the real advantage of playing humans was that they are everwhere. But as the games evolve this benefit of 'almost everone is like me' has mosy disappeared unless Dms go out of their way to show off stuff like speciesism and whatnot.
humans are easy to identify with and they good race benefits. there is no reason not to play them.
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Themetricsystem, I happen to disagree with you. I see lots of appeal in playing a human.
Beyond the dungeon there is lots you can do with playing the human. Lets see, one simple way to very humans in terms of role playing, is to have the human hail from another culture. If I may quite Morgan Freeman from the movie “Robin hood: Prince of Thieves”: “where is the sun in this dam country” or “ I cant believe barbarians took the holy land”.
I can think of plenty of other examples. How about an Vudrani Guru “Indian” character who is more concerned with enlightenment rather then good vs evil, or law vs chaos?
There are plenty of other examples I can think of.
RP potential has little to do with the character's race and everything to do with the player / ref / campaign.
You won't have it with the former if you don't have it in the latter.
IMO.
Creative Director
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I quite often play human characters. And while I think that humans DO have some compelling crunch to them (they're way more versatile than other races) they also allow me to interact easier with most game worlds, where humans are the primary race of NPCs.
There's a reason why most fantasy stories have human characters in central roles and non-humans in supporting roles—it's easier to put yourself into the fantasy if the central character is easier to identify with.
And anyway, I hardly think humans in Golarion are vanilla. We have TWELVE different ethnicities of human to choose from, each of which has a LOT of different flavor and stuff to build characters off of. In Golarion, humans have always had more flavor support than any other race, so the idea that they're vanilla kind of boggles me.
I can think of lots of crunch reasons to play ANY race (for example, any demihumans' low light or dark vision, the various weapon proficiencies, bonuses to certain skills, gnome spell like abilities, etc. etc. etc.).
And I can think of even more fluff reasons to play ANY race, including a human--especially in a campaign setting where the human cultures are well-fleshed out, like Golarion or Faerun.
I have to wonder if the OP had a bad experience with a player who did play human only for the bonus feat or extra skill point. Don't let one player (or even a few) let you get a bad taste in your mouth. And if you just don't like humans... fine, you don't like'em. No need to rationalize a reason why others do.
I's a "to each his own" thing, all the way. Some people hate demihumans and only play humans, even if their concept would be boosted by playing a different race. And any race could fall into that category.
Seriously though, from a RP standpoint, humans have little to offer someone looking to build an interesting character. Yes you can build a human with a deep story but they simply lack the flavor that anything else has. They are generic, and very copy/paste feeling.
In my experience, humans have been by far the most interesting and believable characters.
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My players used to feel the same way. Unless you wanted to multiclass a character and not have to deal with favoured class, no one in my group made Humans. Also, the extra feat didn't really stack up to the bonus' that other races had.
Then we started getting into Golarian, where I required you choose a race to be Human. All of a sudden, I have 3 human players, all with different backgrounds and not at all optimized (wizard/psion, ranger and fighter).
I have had the exact opposite experience. I have never seen a Dwarf who was not an ale chugging, Scottish accented, charisma dump stated, Fighter.
Personally, I do not need pointy ears or a beard to add character to my character.
When I do play (a rare thing, since I'm usually stuck with GM duties), I tend to avoid playing human characters. Not because they are boring, but just because I enjoy playing what I don't normally get to (as the GM, I usually end up portraying dozens of human NPCs for ever non-human one).
So far, I've played :
A short stocky bald elf barbarian with the worst personality.
A half-drow favored soul with a sarcastic sense of humor and an overprotective streak.
A half-orc named Chak who had a high IQ who usually spoke in single syllable words 'Chak Smash!'
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If I play an Elf, I can play an Elf. In Golarion, there's little or no information on what makes an elf from the Mwangi Expanse different from a Mordant Spires elf from one that lives in Kyonin. Aquatic elves exist in name and theory, thanks to Elves of Golarion, but they don't seem to trade with or interact with any of the surface-dwelling cultures, don't have any place on the map to call their own and are less commonly encountered or described in product than Aboleth (and way, way less than Boggards), meaning that I've got zero guidance as to what their culture would be like or how it would interact with the cultures of the inner sea, other than a general assumpion that they would be 'like elves, that live underwater' and that the interaction would be 'more or less than mooncalves.'
If I play a Dwarf, Gnome or Halfling, there's even less distinction.
If I play a Human, I can be an Ullfen raider straight out of The 13th Warrior, a Conan-esque Kellid, a tattooed Shoanti, a virtue-stealing dark-eyed Varisian ne'er-do-well, a proud Chelaxian, a haunted (or degenerate) Azlanti, a sun-darkened Osirioni, a mysterious Tien, a flamboyant Vudrani or a mercantile Qadiran.
The non-human races are totally boring, from an RP standpoint. We really know crap-all about them, and there's far less that stands out about playing an Elf than there is about playing a Varisian or a Shoanti or a Chelaxian, as the human cultures are the ones that get fleshed out in Adventure Paths, not the 'demi-human' ones (with the exception of the Drow, in Second Darkness).
Heck, I've seen more interesting and compelling and exciting roleplaying hooks for roleplaying Golarion *Goblins* than I have about Dwarves, and that's after getting an entire pamphlet on 'Dwarves of Golarion.'
Human all the way, if I want to play a character with ties to the setting (and the crunch, like the Varisian Wanderer Faction, Osirioni Blade-Binding or Andoren Falconry feats or the Shoanti bola, klar and earthbreaker, that sometimes accompanies such fleshing out).
[Dwarf or Halfling all the way if I want to play a character whose backstory I can make from whole cloth, that I won't see in the NPC Guide or on the map, and can invent whatever wild backstory I want to explore, tucked away in some unexplored area.]
Same with Clerics, really. Four times a year, an article comes out detailing a different diety and how their clergy operate. There's an entire book with a two-page writeup of each diety, with suggestions as to their clerical / priestly followers, and each diety allows three to four different alignments worth of clerics (and, in the case of Norgorber, breaks down into four different churches!).
Are there four articles a year on fighting schools or roguely guilds or monkly orders, and an entire book devoted to making 20 different types of fighter exciting and different, with different weapons, practices and unique perks and benefits? Not so much.
Powergamers concerned with min/maxing so they can get the feat. That's who.
Seriously though, from a RP standpoint, humans have little to offer someone looking to build an interesting character. Yes you can build a human with a deep story but they simply lack the flavor that anything else has. They are generic, and very copy/paste feeling.
A Dwarf, an Elf, and a Human walk into a tavern. The Dwarf orders a drink and starts chatting up the locals. The Elf hits on the waitress and works his way over to the entertainment to relax. The Human searches for a bulletin board, and failing that grills the bartender for rumors of dangerous creatures with bounties on their heads.
My opinion, feel free to chip in but... I don't see the appeal in playing a Human past a dungeon crawler. Humans make better Roll-players than Role-players.
Your thoughts? What has your experience been?
This sounds like a stereotyping problem. Only instead of people feeling constrained in roles by the fluff of the race. Your group seems to require specific fluff in order to effectively play a role. You could help them out. Create a list of quirky humans full of personality. Them let them look it over for inspiration. Maybe they could use a hand getting started in role play. Or if this is your problem perhaps someone can make such a list for you.
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This is another meaningless thread that is started, in my opinion, by someone who has nothing better to do with their time...
just like me by replying to it.
A human can chat it up with the locals, and hit on the waitresses just as effectively as any other race.
I find this argument (that dwarves and elves are more interesting than humans by what they can do in a tavern) very weak. Even when I was 10 I could make a better case for a dwarf vs. human.
I appologize for this negativity, but some of the threads that start on these boards are getting so juvenile. I am probably going to be percieved as a troll here before long if it continues...
CC
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It all comes down to what each individual thinks is fun.
In PFS I have a Human Cleric that I LOVE to play. He's fun and interesting. If I can ever find a campaign again he is the one I would play to better flesh out and develop. I have a backstory for him that PFS doesn't really allow me to flesh out.
I also have a dwarven fighter. Stereotypical perhaps. Is he gruff, sure, because he's a fighter, not because he's a dwarf. Does he dislike elves? Sure, but ALL of my characters dislike elves, humans as well, because I dislike the tree humping freaks. lol :) The dwarf is interesting to play as well and I'd like more RP opportunities in PFS, but that will never happen.
Really about the only race I won't consider playing is elf. And that is probably due to the fact that after the Lord of the Rings movies it seemed no one was capable of playing an elf that was not named Legolas. mmmm maybe I should give an elf a try and get over that dark part of our history! lol
BTW I also like making elves the bad guys! Lots of fun :)
A Dwarf, an Elf, and a Human walk into a tavern. The Dwarf orders a drink and starts chatting up the locals. The Elf hits on the waitress and works his way over to the entertainment to relax. The Human searches for a bulletin board, and failing that grills the bartender for rumors of dangerous creatures with bounties on their heads.
Well, sure, if your idea of role-playing is restricted to the stereotyping of imaginary races, the only way to role play is by playing a nonhuman character. Of course, your premise that there's no variety in humans is false in the real world and false in Golarion, with its 50+ countries.
Why not make your stance more absurd and argue that the finest role playing of all can be found only in those who play blink dogs or Otyughs like GULGA CENCH?
Make a snooty post, expect a snotty reply.
If I'm playing a Pathfinder Chronicles game, I'd look at the various human cultures as having VASTLY greater RP potential.
I never roll characters. I play them. Dice are for rolling.
Humans might not have anything inherently awesome, but that's alright: I can make characters that are interesting without crutches like magical cats as pets or being the only of his kind that isn't evil (we all know how long that lasts).
A Dwarf, an Elf, and a Human walk into a tavern. The Dwarf orders a drink and starts chatting up the locals. The Elf hits on the waitress and works his way over to the entertainment to relax. The Human searches for a bulletin board, and failing that grills the bartender for rumors of dangerous creatures with bounties on their heads.
Obviously I play with a completely different crowd of people. When I run/play any kind of rpg it is a rule that everyone comes up with a unique character history, with motivations, quirks, interests, dislikes, etc. Whether it's a Human or a Non-Human character, players have a story behind their character sheet.
Are dwarves always drunk? No.
Are Elves always danty? No.
Come up with something unique to play that falls within the guidelines of the campaign and genre. If the genre doesn't have enough info, consult with your DM about what is appropriate.
How hard is that?
Also, try not to be the "Drow-Ranger-weilding-two-scimitars" special flower, because you think it's cool. Be creative, but don't be dumb.
I only play human and in pathfinder i played a half-elf for the first time once. he died at lvl 3. I find it impossible to be any other race other than human, I don't know why but the idea of playing another race has never appealed to me.
Also, try not to be the "Drow-Ranger-weilding-two-scimitars" special flower, because you think it's cool. Be creative, but don't be dumb.
Or a ninja.
Or a vampire.
Or a fantasy version of a Jedi.
We should start a list.
Have you seen the Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising?
Or a fantasy version of a Jedi.
"It's not a lightsaber; It's a psionic mind-blade."
EDIT: spirit-blade. Gah, I hate quoting incorrectly . . .