I would be very disappointed in any DM that would tell a player "It is genetically impossible for your PC to have such a personality".Me too. Although sometimes it will be socially impossible. Gorunk, the ogre-kin exotic dancer! People pay him to stop.
I'd love seeing that character! LOL!
(And I don't think it'd be impossible... I'm sure dancing Ogrekin in skimpy clothes are someone's fetish. Everything is).
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I'd rather see a male half-orc exotic dancer. Showing off those muscles and sexy battle-scars.
I'd say my view of humans is kinda boring, I live as one, surrounded by ones every single day. Then again all of my PFS characters are Assimar and Tieflings.
Of those Tieflings, only one is the classic "moody and dark" (and arrogant as can be) and that has nothing to do with her race. But to do with her being a worshiper of Pharasma, focused on the Death and destroying the undead aspects. Creepy little witch.
My secondary Tiefling is a CN manwhore who's quite cheerful, rather proud of his heritage (because it's incubus). He's a shameless pirate and thief who lives by the privateer code and has happily left slavers chained to the bottom of their own boat (after rescuing the slaves of course)... then left the boat to where it will slowly sink. They have the chance to escape.
My final tiefling is a Paladin who admits her Rakshasha spawn side pushes her to enjoy oppulance, and doesn't deny it. Instead she serves Arshea as a courtesan, and has turned her desire into opulence and pleasure into a litany for her deity.
I would be very disappointed in any DM that would tell a player "It is genetically impossible for your PC to have such a personality".Me too. Although sometimes it will be socially impossible. Gorunk, the ogre-kin exotic dancer! People pay him to stop.
LMAO at that character.
In all seriousness, I don't see how a person deciding to buck the trend of their society is a bad thing. Harsk in one of my favorite Iconics specifically because he bucks the trends. He favors tea over beer, crossbows over axes, and the forest over the mountains. One's genetics are not a straitjacket that compels you to act in a certain way. It's kinda like saying all Norwegians have to love the cold and the mountains because that's what a lot of Norway is like. Norwegians are certainly more adapted to the cold just as Floridians are more adapted to the heat but that doesn't mean they have to like where they are from. Even if they do it isn't hardcoded into their DNA.
In fairness to SRS, many D&D races do have a problem with racial stereotypes showing up in their statistics. As things have improved, it's played more like that things like Dwarven stonecutting, Halfling luck, and human versatility are evolutionary adaptations. This would mean that Dwarves tend to like living under the mountain and fighting giants because they have spent centuries doing so and thus they're bodies have adapted to thrive there.
Let's take darkvision as an example. Orcs and Dwarves have it because they lived underground for so long. There is far less natural light so darkvision is a huge boon. One of the reasons Dwarves like to live under the mountain is because they have a strategic advantage over many other races there. If an army of humans attack and charge underneath the mountain, they'll be at a disadvantage to the Dwarves there.
If a Dwarf wants, they could move somewhere sunny like Jamaica. There's far less need for darkvision so it is not the advantage it was under the mountain. This does not mean that the Dwarf can't like Jamaica. He could decide that Jamica is nice for him. His species can as a whole like living under the mountain but he prefers Jamaica.
This, to me, is the point of alternate racial traits. You can choose to get rid of things that don't fit your character and replace them with things that do. You decide your dwarven wizard is more intellectual and certainly not greedy. You can replace the greedy trait with the lorekeeper trait.
Even without them (they do require GM approval), just because you have a certain evolution advantage or predilection, doesn't mean you have to use it. A dwarf can live their whole life in a human country without ever using his stonecutting ability. Doesn't make him less of a Dwarf.
(Sorry to keep going on about the Dwarf but they seem to get the most stereotyping of all the core races and possibly beyond.)
I would be very disappointed in any DM that would tell a player "It is genetically impossible for your PC to have such a personality".Me too. Although sometimes it will be socially impossible. Gorunk, the ogre-kin exotic dancer! People pay him to stop.I'd love seeing that character! LOL!
(And I don't think it'd be impossible... I'm sure dancing Ogrekin in skimpy clothes are someone's fetish. Everything is).
You can't tell him he isn't beautiful.
Though if you wanted to take the concept of a dancing ogre at all seriously, you could easily make him a Bard and flavor his performances after the Haka war dance or a similar real world combat performance.
I tend to prefer the standard races, and made a tiefling specifically because lots of other people were making aasimars. However... I've played a merfolk (not a strongtail, either, but a Flame Oracle), a samsaran (not Mystic Past Life), and I've got nothing against the other races (except aasimar, I'm so tired of their ubiquity). I just tend to prefer the standard race set.
I also once ran a Garundi game with gnoll, catfolk, ratfolk, and suli PCs.
When I sit down at the table with someone who has idiosyncratic issues with perfectly legitimate character choices by the other players I assume they're a self-centered busybody who is going to be a complete pill to try and game with.
Also when you read superficial motives into everyone else (making all character choices purely for mechanics) it makes me think that this is because that's how you see the game. If you honestly can't see a reason why someone would play a human I can only conclude it's because you only see game mechanics, full stop. Because if you understood that most people don't just throw stats on a page you'd have answered your own question.
Frankly, this is your damage so it's a bit ironic that you feel you can make sweeping judgements about others.
I thought this thread was going to be about the stereotypes other races have of humans, like how Dwarves are seen as greedy.
Personality and genetics are completely unrelated.That's like saying there is only one race in the game.
Not even remotely.