What Core Races have you played?

[pawsplay]

Played 'em all, liked them all.

...although I disliked 3.5's shifting Gnomes to Bards instead of Illusionists.

I hate banjo gnomes.

 

[WayneLigon]

Just curious due to the level of Gnome discussion. Currently in the poll about half of people have never played a gnome in D&D. So, let's see for the other races.

I've played all those races. Never played a gnome in any incarnation of the game. I've only seen people play gnomes twice in games that were not pick-up games or ones where they were just horsing around.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, for the third time.

The reason that gnomes don't show up in this poll is that THEY HAVE THEIR OWN POLL. All of their own. 100% THEIRS. I don't need to include them here, since we have another poll which shows results on gnomes.

But, yeah, it does look like this poll does mirror the results from WOTC. Funny that.

 

[Phaeryx]

I wonder if the fact that the gnome and the half-orc are the least favorite has any bearing, psychologically, on the fact that they are two of the "ugliest" of the core races.

This is arguable, but based solely on 3.5 depictions, these 2 races are physically less attractive than the others. With the half-orc it's obvious. Not so much with gnomes, but compare them with the depiction of 3.5 halflings: they're roughly the same height, but halflings retain the physical proportions and bodily dimensions of humans, while gnomes have oversized heads and are sometimes portrayed with bulbous noses, etc.

I think there may be something to the desire for some, conscious or not, to involve a bit of fantasy-fulfillment in the physical appearance of their characters. I know I fall into that category. I think dwarves escape this stigma because of their masculine aura of strength and toughness. Now we're talking about fantasy races here, so I don't want to rankle anyone by making some sort of blanket statement about the measure of attractiveness of little people, but I think the notion of an ideal physical form or facial features, which undeniably exists in our culture, may play into the decisions of more people than just myself, whether or not that's a good thing.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I wonder if the fact that the gnome and the half-orc are the least favorite has any bearing, psychologically, on the fact that they are two of the "ugliest" of the core races.

I think gnomes are more attractive than dwarves. At least I can tell if I'm looking at a female gnome! Then again, dwarves are testosterone-fueled (many of my PCs are ugly anyway) so I don't expect them to look good to me.

Maybe attractiveness (or lack thereof) plays a role, but the gnome's lack of focus is, IMO, the biggest drawback. (The only obvious focus are the comical steampunk tinker gnomes... and I think that focus drives people away from them.)

Edit: Just noticed you already mentioned "masculine" dwarves, so I'm just wasting bandwidth here.

 

[Bugaboo]

Hey, why aren't gnomes in this poll? That doesn't make a lot of sense not to have all the races in one place. I wanted to pick gnomes and they weren't here.

 

[Moggthegob]

i have playd 24 gnomes, 4 half-orcs, two humans, and one dwarf

 

[Deset Gled]

Did anyone else notice that gnomes were left out of this poll?

 

[Angel Tarragon]

100+ Humans
100+ Elves
30 Dwarves
15 Half-Orcs
1 Halfling

 

[Lanefan]

I wonder if the fact that the gnome and the half-orc are the least favorite has any bearing, psychologically, on the fact that they are two of the "ugliest" of the core races.

From what I've seen and heard from those I play with, this is certainly true for part-orcs. Dwarves sometimes get the same shaft, but still get played more.

Gnomes don't get played much in our games mainly, I think, because we have made them somewhat shorter than the core descriptions of any edition suggest, averaging around 2'6".

Lanefan