is it just me me or metahumans in hong kong are too human?

[JolyJew СлаваУкраине]

their game models look great but their portraits (you know, what really matters) sometimes completly miss the mark.

in the first quarter of the game i was certain that duncan is a plain human.
until i played the bonus campaign i thought gobbet was an elf
hell my elf character almost looked like a human, when did elves ever have beards? (was the only civilized looking male elf that could resemble a shaman)

so yeah. what's the point of this "meta"humanity of nearly all the species look and behave alike? wasn't there a whole lot of prejudice against none-humans? how does it make any sense when the only race that has distinct features are trolls?

is that how metahumans look in the P&P shadowran as well?

[OptoNick]

IDK, what matters is a pre-defined skills. From what I remember out of SR lore, trolls are really the most distinctive kind of metahumans: by their physique, by IR-vision, by appearance. Elves were almost not segregated in comparison to other metaraces. Non-shadowrunning dwarves and orcs are mostly living in closed, racially purified societies.

BTW, there are a number of mentions in remarks to the text that Duncan and Gobbet are orcs, and there are visible fangs on both portraits :)

[Corlain]

I wonder where you live if Duncan's teeth are normal around there...

[JolyJew СлаваУкраине]

duncan's teeth bleded with his face pretty well. and when i did notice them i thought they were some kind of safety mouth gear for unarmed combat (him being a policeman and all)

and i thought gobbet had fangs because of her devotion to Rat.

neither have any "orcish" facial features like Aurdan or ivanov (my orc rigger) as the orc portriats from dragonfall

[steelcoresoviet]

I sort of agree. I don't think the character designers should be constrained to only make typical metahumans.

But the idea of skinny orcs as a default is too much, man.

On the other hand, there was an elf with a lumberjack beard as early as DMS...

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Originally posted by steelcoresoviet:

I sort of agree. I don't think the character designers should be constrained to only make typical metahumans.

But the idea of skinny orcs as a default is too much, man.

I don't think it ever comes up in-game, but isn't there a local variant of orc in Hong Kong?

Can't remember their names, but I'm fairly certain their a bit like what Oni are to trolls: not as sturdy and strong—relativly, but prettier and more human-like and with a longer life-span.

Somebody more versed in the tabletop is going to have to weight in on that, though. I might be mistaken.

[JolyJew СлаваУкраине]

so hong-kong orks are just humans with long ears and fangs? that's... pretty boring

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Originally posted by Jolly Jew:

so hong-kong orks are just humans with long ears and fangs? that's... pretty boring

Think I found it, although it's a bit sparse.

Hobgoblins are a metavariant of Orks. Most hobgoblins are of Arabic or Central Asian descent. They are shorter and of slighter build than other Orks. They tend to have a greenish tint of skin, sharper teeth, pointed chins, and dark eyes. While widely rumored to be quick-tempered and possessing a vindictive sense of honor, this may be a cultural bias rather than genetic predisposition. However, a joint study by the Charles University (Prague) and the Atatürk Polytechnic Institute (Istanbul) point to high levels of steroid hormones that may point to a biochemical source of aggressiveness.

Hobgoblins have an average height of 1.80 meters and average weight of 98 kilograms.

http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Hobgoblins

So not quite humans with fangs, but definatly distinct from the standard ork.

Again, not sure about them in the context of Hong Kong, though.

[__-__-__]

I think more games should have body customization options, I have to play with this character for the next 12+ hours but I can only customize 10% of them? Even NWN had phenotype presets ("Normal" and "Big").

That being said the fantasy race stereotypes have long outlived thier value, it was refreshing to find that Shadowrun didn't make the race of it's characters thier defining characteristic. Why should every metahuman be defined, in both personality and appearance (beyond establishing basic parameters), by thier "race"? If all these races are based on humans why wouldn't they look human?

[JolyJew СлаваУкраине]

no one was complaining about their personality. their banile apearance is what bothers me.

and actually. it would actually be cool if orcs behaved like stereotypical orcs. it would be a lot more interesting how scociety handles people with different behavior patterns that are more prone to action.

if all of them would look or behave the same then there is no point for the whole "metahumanity" thing.

[🕉☪Hive☸☯ ∩ (◣_◢) ∩]

My biggest annoyance with the races are how we get one body model of each sex per race. If i want to play an ex-BTL junkie, I can't get my character to look the way I'm picturing it. Portrait-wise we can, but definitely agree that a bit more in customization would go a long way in replayability ^.^ Dialogue could be invested into help w/ immersion, but then again that's why we have UGC - so we can all be the DM at times ^.^ Go through some of the core book's art and you'll see that not all of metahumanity is stereotypical at all. HBS has been the best shadowrun dev since I bought a genesis just for that version of SR.

[__-__-__]

Originally posted by Jolly Jew:

and actually. it would actually be cool if orcs behaved like stereotypical orcs. it would be a lot more interesting how scociety handles people with different behavior patterns that are more prone to action.

This has been done ad nauseum, the way it's always been handled is the Orks are almost always the bad guys exterminated wherever they're found, they have no place in society and are generally treated as vermin. Even the "Honorable Ork Society" concept falls into a rut far too easily (and is really just a mashup of the Dwarven smith society and Klingon warrior culture). Shadowrun (at least the three more recent games I can't speak for anything older) is one of the few places that avoids the stereotypical handling of these races and I think that it's better for it.

Additionally, the stereotypical concepts are not gone, they're just used by groups like Humanis to justify thier feelings of Human superiority. As far as Humanis is concerned all Orks (and Trolls) are just violent brutes that should just be put down but interactions with Orks and Trolls in the game itself go to show just how out of touch these stereotypical concepts actually are.

[JolyJew СлаваУкраине]

umm... what about warcraft? D&D? Might and Magic? they are all huge and in all of them orcs are respectble and and understanble.

the only franchises that present orcs as pure evil is lord of the rings and warhammer40k

[__-__-__]

Already addressed that point.

Originally posted by Sesh:

Even the "Honorable Ork Society" concept falls into a rut far too easily (and is really just a mashup of the Dwarven smith society and Klingon warrior culture).

Even when not treated as purely evil they're still treated the same because they're orcs, it doesn't matter what thier origin is or whether they're evil or not characters from these races have only a minimal number of preset personalities that get repeated every time this concept gets used. Once or twice was interesting, more than 5 is mind numbingly boring.

I've never seen D&D treat orcs as anything other than "Bad Guys by default". In fact they've got at least 5 "Bad Guys by default" races.

[JolyJew СлаваУкраине]

well i still would like to see how a modern scociety like in shadowrun would treat orcs/trolls if they were to fall into a rut far too easily (and is really just a mashup of the Dwarven smith society and Klingon warrior culture).

(also, orcs are represented as a dwarf smith culture only in stupid skyrim

[Rob'sEvilTwin]

In Shadowrun al the Metahuman races are just people, from all the different cultures on earth.
Some of them are people with pointy ears and tusks :D