Elven metabolism, tall dwarves, pretty trolls.

[jonesy]

Have you ever seen a fat D&D elf? Have you ever played one? If a player made a dwarf who was born as tall as a human (with both parents still dwarves), how would the character need to be built? Trolls have been a player character option in some settings (like Mystara). What about a troll who looked at least as good as a half-ogre? Or is that 'looking bad' from the troll perspective? There's variation among people in the real world, and special exceptions to every rule. Player characters are all special somehow (unless you're playing a character whose entire concept is 'boringly avarage').

It isn't just about the player characters, though. It's about the people in the setting looking more than just 'member of race X'. Almost all D&D art seems to depict above avarage or just plain good looking specimen from each creature group. And with largely stereotypical fashion statement. How about a chubby Sun Elf positive emo? Tiefling with a skin condition where the extra bones and horns don't grow? How would one go about making the art more varied without said individual of race X looking like a member of race Y instead? "I drew a large elf." "It looks like a human." "What about the ears?" "Ok, a half-elf."

And that's not to say that there haven't been exceptions along these lines. Dragonlance had ogres more beautiful than elves (the Irda). Sundered dwarves are slim and tall (for dwarves). Athas had the Mul who were descended from dwarves and as tall as humans. And so on and so on. But all these fall to the same trap where every member of said race variant follows the typical body type of that variant.

And fat elves? A condition affecting metabolism which made it impossible to lose weight? What if the trait was inherited and they became a race of their own? And what is fat from an elven perspective? Slightly heavyset? And then someone comes along and makes a thin Fat Elf. Am I thinking about this a bit too hard?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Have you ever seen a fat D&D elf? Have you ever played one?

Rarely to the first, and no to the second. I don't believe I've ever seen an overweight PC played in person*, although I read about a "fat gamer" Tough Hero in a d20 Modern campaign that was story hour'd on these boards a while back.

Generally PCs try to avoid situations that could cripple them in combat, on the grounds that it could get you killed.

*The exception was a PC I had played, an overweight tracker, who specifically took the "obese" trait (it was a Savage Worlds game) which had clear penalties (max speed) and benefits (slight pain resistance; my PC was specifically designed to be difficult to injure, but would also make an easy target in gunplay). Being obese only gave him a +1 equivalent to pain resistance, but I had given him lots of pain resistance from other sources, and the DM pointed out that any pistol shot that wasn't a crit wouldn't actually damage him. (Crit being defined as a max damage hit, but I don't recall the system so well.) Said PC was a bit character from a novel I had read years ago, and I didn't have time to come up with an original character concept, and didn't want to play a gunslinger live nearly everyone else in a cowboy setting.

If a player made a dwarf who was born as tall as a human (with both parents still dwarves), how would the character need to be built?

Something makes me think they're not a dwarf. The name alone...

Trolls have been a player character option in some settings (like Mystara). What about a troll who looked at least as good as a half-ogre? Or is that 'looking bad' from the troll perspective? There's variation among people in the real world, and special exceptions to every rule. Player characters are all special somehow (unless you're playing a character whose entire concept is 'boringly avarage').

I'd be more worried about the regeneration than what the troll looked like. Also note that what is considered attractive among trolls might be considerably different than what a human might find attractive. (A low Charisma troll might attract humans, oddly enough.)

It isn't just about the player characters, though. It's about the people in the setting looking more than just 'member of race X'. Almost all D&D art seems to depict above avarage or just plain good looking specimen from each creature group.

I don't think I've seen many good-looking or even average-looking orcs or dwarves. Very few females either, although sometimes it's hard to tell with dwarves!

And with largely stereotypical fashion statement. How about a chubby Sun Elf positive emo? Tiefling with a skin condition where the extra bones and horns don't grow? How would one go about making the art more varied without said individual of race X looking like a member of race Y instead? "I drew a large elf." "It looks like a human." "What about the ears?" "Ok, a half-elf."

You answered your own question there. Each of the demihuman races is basically human with a little bit extra. Take away that "extra" and you can't tell the difference.

Making matters worse, you're dealing with artwork and not a realistic portrayal. If you read manga or watch anime, you'll notice a lot of "stateless" characters (meaning you can't tell what ethnic group they're from based on the artwork). This is because graphic art leaves out a lot of detail, including most of the details that would distinguish people from one group from another group. In Japan, artists usually ignore such details (usually most of the characters are Japanese) but in the West, those details are considered essential, and what few details remain get exaggerated. (East Asian characters in Western art tend to have very slanted eyes, not because the artists think East Asian people look like that, but as a visual shortcut.)

Artists could put an "E" on the forehead of every elf character, but that doesn't make sense in-universe. (At least not in most universes!)

And that's not to say that there haven't been exceptions along these lines. Dragonlance had ogres more beautiful than elves (the Irda).

Irda are mutant ogres. Or more to the point, ogres are essentially mutant Irda. Of course they're going to look different.

Sundered dwarves are slim and tall (for dwarves). Athas had the Mul who were descended from dwarves and as tall as humans. And so on and so on. But all these fall to the same trap where every member of said race variant follows the typical body type of that variant.

Muls are basically as tall as humans with dwarven "iron muscles". On Athas, practically every mul is a slave laborer, warrior, or often both. (This is in part to their creation requirements. While free-born muls like Rkard exist, the vast majority are the products of "arrangements" made by slave owners.) Both professions would tend to increase muscle mass. Finding a skinny or fat mul would require finding a mul who was either free-born (rare but not non-existent) or find a mul who for some reason hadn't gotten worked to death by an irate slaveowner who expected said mul to be able to do back-breaking labor for 70 hours straight like the other muls.

And fat elves? A condition affecting metabolism which made it impossible to lose weight? What if the trait was inherited and they became a race of their own? And what is fat from an elven perspective? Slightly heavyset? And then someone comes along and makes a thin Fat Elf. Am I thinking about this a bit too hard?

You're probably overthinking it.

By the way, I doubt a subrace of "fat elves" could exist. I doubt there'd be enough to support a diverse gen pool, and elves seem vain enough to never marry a fat elf. (Unlike humans. There are married couples where one or both are not "conventionally medium-sized" and are perfectly happy. But I don't think it works like that with elves.)

Although one wonders if, by random chance, the heir to the throne happens to be overweight. (But that never happens. There was a "plus-sized" king of either Qualinost or Silvanost, but that meant he had muscles.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have played both a fat elf and a tall dwarf.

The dwarf was 5'7", something like 300 lbs. He was in a party with a dwarf giant, 6'7", @400 lbs...

(Yes, we planned that.)

 

[jonesy]

Making matters worse, you're dealing with artwork and not a realistic portrayal. If you read manga or watch anime, you'll notice a lot of "stateless" characters (meaning you can't tell what ethnic group they're from based on the artwork). This is because graphic art leaves out a lot of detail, including most of the details that would distinguish people from one group from another group.

That's true, I suppose.

As a DM I have a tendency to try and break apart the Law of Conservation of Detail with a Cast of Snowflakes. Or, to not use tvtropes terms, I like making each and every NPC be somehow memorable so you never know who the real movers and shakers are until the it starts moving and shaking (that gave me a weird mental image). I've always found it easy to make up trivial details on the go. When I get stumped it's usually crunch related.

 

[VariSami]

Well, I had a fat elf in the first game I ever led and I would prefer not to talk about that one (WHFRPG 2nd edition). There is actually a chubby elf in the art of one of the books of that game. Or at least a chubby person with pointy ears and too long to be a halfling. There are no half-elves, mind you. Also, my first girlfriend rolled a completely random character for D&D 3.5 (except for race and class; never got around to play that one) and it was an Elf Monk who weighed 240 pounds. Yes, the rules actually have a listed weight of 40lbs x 1d6 for Elven women.

Regarding obese characters in general, I played an obese eunuch information broker in a Bliaron (my friend's and his friends' Finnish self-published fantasy RPG). Of course, he was a human. But it was a character who would not have worked without the extra girth which made sure that he was nothing but a ball-less spider.

 

[harikus]

My Elan is very young and has dark black hair (they usually have red early on) with a lilac eye and a blue eye. He is about 6'0" 220 pounds. I guess he might be "overweight" but we rolled our stats. I ended up with two 18s and put one in int and the other in con. So I guess he looks more hardy and rugged, which is not what I imagine Elans to be in the description
We have a human who has a "cursed" ring that changed his form and he draws his ability to use Warlock magic from it. It makes him ashen colored skin with bright red hair.
We also have a halfling with vow of poverty and he is very thin for his race and size, and likes to work in a Tavern our Bard owns as a server for free during off-time. I always imagined halflings to be more laid back and not so much into work.
edit
I used to have a Half Giant Abjurer before he died sometime back. He seemed to weigh to little due to our DMs mistaken impression on how to roll weight and height. He ended up like 7'7" 350 pounds. He didn't go for the whole dreadlock look like Ronin from Star Gate Atlantis, he kept his hair short and obsessed to stay out of filthy spaces (he had a phobia of germs as his flaw).

 

[jonesy]

The elan makes me think of this guy:
http://static.happyplace.com/assets/images/2012/10/50733d276dee4.jpg
(X)
Not that much muscle for his frame, but peak physical condition.

 

[harikus]

Lol love it. Just give him black hair slightly longer too. Maybe slight paler skin but not much and a Mithril Breastplate and a Spiked Gauntlet on his left hand. Would be perfect.

 

[Salamandyr]

I see elves, dwarves, and trolls as representations of concepts-exaggerations of human traits. Consequently, if they move too far from the "standard" idea of what they are, then they no longer represent the concept they're intended to represent. You can stretch it some... take a chair for instance, you might add wheels, and it's still a chair. You could add a motor, and it could still be a chair. But if we were to add wings, encase it in a steel skin and serve drinks and small bags of peanuts, it's not really a chair anymore-it's an airplane-even though we're still sitting while using it.

So for me, if I play an elf, it's because I want to play an elf, with all that that implies. If I'm not in the mood to play to the traits embodied by those concepts, I play a human.

[Edit and Addendum] This is written after the next couple posts in line.

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?

Anyway, it's a tangent from the original post, but kind of where I was coming from with my post.

 

[GMMichael]

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...