Elven metabolism, tall dwarves, pretty trolls.

[Salamandyr]

Did you get a look at the goblin king from the Hobbit part 1?

Try dividing racial characteristics into Nature and Nuture categories. That should give you all the wiggle room you need to get crazy:

Nature: height, eye shape, skin color, hair color, number of toes...
Nuture: weight, build, tattoos, hair color, skin color, piercing/stretchings, implants...

I did...there's nothing really un-goblin like about being big and fat and (for reasons quite aside from his weight) ridiculous. A better example of cross stereotype would be the Goblin King from Labyrinth. Whatever he is, David Bowie isn't my idea of a goblin--though he does fit quite well my idea of the King of the Fae; and goblins are traditionally some of the Unseelie parts of the Faerie Court. So the King of the Goblins does not necessarily have to be a goblin himself.

On your list-weight and musculature are only minimally an issue of nurture; a tiger will never be as fat as a walrus. The same applies to height, and physical attractiveness, the three characteristics the original poster used as examples. Skin and hair color are also genetically determined.

Body art-tattoos or piercings, weren't what was being asked about.

 

[Weather Report]

Rarely to the first, and no to the second. I don't believe I've ever seen an overweight PC played in person*,

I no what you mean, but my buddy played a chubby Samurai that was light on his feet, much like John Belushi.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In Middle-earth, orc and goblin are used to mean the same thing, before D&D redefined them. A "fat goblin" could easily be an orc.

 

[Weather Report]

In Middle-earth, orc and goblin are used to mean the same thing, before D&D redefined them. A "fat goblin" could easily be an orc.

True, and the Noldor were originally Gnomes.

 

[Derren]

I once played a overweight gnome illusionist with a complete personality who threw money which he got from adventuring around like it was nothing so that people were "forced" to serve him instead of throwing him out.

And in another, sadly short lived, game I played a dwarven noble who didn't want to have anything to do with those dirty ale drinking commoners in their mines.

 

[jonesy]

It's like writing a story where you have cats and dogs, except cats are diurnal pack hunters with strong bonding instincts, who track and run down prey and dogs are nocturnal, solitary stalker hunters with excellent nightvision, just so you can say "My cats and dogs are different". Why not just have the dog be the dog and the cat be the cat?

Crispin Freeman, voice actor extraordinaire, touched on this idea during a Super Con panel in 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbMh742lsck
Short version: "Twilight vampires aren't vampires, they are classical fairies with the label changed." But he talks about a lot, and in only nine minutes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think what I was thinking about in this post is less to do with individual characters, like for instance a dwarf affected by gigantism, and the tendency of some DM's and world designers to change their elves or dwarves just to have bragging rights that "our elves are different!" as if some superficial changes to behavior made up for a lack of characterization. I recall for instance, one story I read where dwarves had no beards and gnomes did (and hated each other). What was the point? If you're just going to mess around with what we fundamentally think of as a "dwarf", why call it a dwarf at all? Why not call it a "stonebrother", or something. The hairlessness of dwarves didn't make the story interesting. Oh, and elves and orcs were related to each other. None of the creatures he called elves felt like elves, or dwarves felt like dwarves. He just used those fantasy names because they were fantasy and then just willy nilly changed characteristics on them until they didn't feel like what they were supposed to represent.

It's like writing a story where you have cats and dogs, except cats are diurnal pack hunters with strong bonding instincts, who track and run down prey and dogs are nocturnal, solitary stalker hunters with excellent nightvision, just so you can say "My cats and dogs are different". Why not just have the dog be the dog and the cat be the cat?

Well, if you go back far enough in the fairytales and mythologies, and you'll find terms like elf, dwarf, gnome, goblin and a bunch of other terms were often used interchangeably. So, depending on who was telling the tale, an elf might be short & fat. A goblin tall & sinewy...

It isn't until you get into the fantasy novels of the mid-20th century that such terms started getting truly standardized, and RPGs sort of set them in stone.

But yeah, superficial changes don't do much for me. Which is why, when I scramble things up, I try to make my changes meaningful.

 

[Phototoxin]

3rd E D&D had the BOVD which had the 'vile feat' of obese = +1 con, -1 dex and bonus to intimidate I think. There was also a 'gaunt' feat which was pretty much the opposite = +1 dec -1con and bonus to stealth (possibly?)