Dwarven Rage! What do you love about dwarves?

[Dark Jezter]

Plus heavy armor, axes, hammers, beards, runic magic, and their names just kick serious butt- like Woldemar Ingarwulf. (No pantywaiste stupid elf names, like Theladorien Moonshadow).

"Most really silly names for characters are given to elf PCs by gamers attempting to be artistic." -E. Gary Gygax

I love that quote.

 

[Paxr0mana]

Dwarves are also, reputedly, secretive as hell. How do you know they haven't invented gun powder and are using it in their war of attrition against their goblinoid enemies?

I tend to use the secretiveness of dwarves as a good explanation for a lot of things that I can then reveal to players as the campaign progresses to really surprise them. It's a great schtick and I'm surprised more people don't use it. In fact, I've been surprised at some of the discussion on other boards (Greyhawk ones, mainly) about DMs having trouble reconciling having dwarven wizards appearing in 3E when race/class restrictions were all lifted. For me, it just means that nobody really had any idea there were dwarven wizards before, but they were possible and were there in a secret society of dwarven magic artificers, hidden deeply from non-dwarven eyes...

In my current game, my DM has let me in on a secret about my Dwarf Fighter's (who used to be a high ranking individual) home city: Giant Dwarven Battle Armor, affectionately called the Dragon Knights. Nobody else in the group knows about this, so when he finally reveals it, I'm going to enjoy the looks on their faces.

 

[shilsen]

Women with beards

 

[edge3343]

I think like alot of people, Dwarves embody alot of the traits that I find appealing and or just plain cool.

Beer (my dad and I are homebrewers)
Toughness (in my mind rugged individualism)
Action rather than talk (not always a good thing but fun to play )
Not to interject politics here but I think of Dwarves as Conservatives and Races like Elves as Liberals.

 

[edge3343]

I love dwarves- always have. They stand for a lot of positive qualities: honor, strong tradition and clan ties, industriousness, discipline, toughness, burliness, honesty, carefulness, and wisdom.

Plus heavy armor, axes, hammers, beards, runic magic, and their names just kick serious butt- like Woldemar Ingarwulf. (No pantywaiste stupid elf names, like Theladorien Moonshadow).

Actually, elves stand for just about everything I loathe in real life (undisciplined, impulsiveness, lazy, histrionic, overly emotional, flaky-artistic, and flouncy- they are like hippies who became yuppies), so the race that is the antithesis of elves HAS to be worthwhile in my book.

Yeah yeah yeah! That's what I was trying to say.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

honor,

Yea, that's nice, but there's things more worthy: life for example. I'm for death before dishonor, but only if you are sorting words alphabetically...

strong tradition

The excuse to do stupid things: That's how it has been done all the time. Instead of improving yourself, you make the old mistakes, again and again. Or maybe the old things were good once, but now they're rubbish. A good example are those "Funny laws" lists, where it's still law in one city to drive your automobile no faster than 6mph hand have someone run in front waving a flag as to warn riders...

industriousness

Ah yes, industriousness, and his good friend pollution

discipline,

SIR, YES, SIR!

toughness,

How's that song going? "If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough"

their names just kick serious butt- like Woldemar Ingarwulf.

Ooh, that one has rarity value! One of the few dwarven names that doesn't contain "axe" "hammer" "stone" or any metal.


Sure, I can understand that many like dwarves as a PC-Race. That way, they can "roleplay" a character who's only fighting, won't talk more than 3 words in a whole session (not counting the 3500 words where he lists his ancestry back to the dawn of time and some time before that - which is the dwarven version of the sleep spell, noone likes when someone talks about himself all the time) and hit whatever they encounter, without being forced to think things out - and they can claim that they're playing their dwarf properly. I wonder why the World of Darkness doesn't have a "Dwarf: The Mining" game...

 

[ARandomGod]

I can't quite tell if you're all joking, but I think this is a great idea. One whole adventure in it at least

Actually, in my campaigns I generally have a dwarven blaster guild, who knows gunpowder, has dynomyte. They don't have anything like guns though, and I do have the cantrip "spark" for that exact reason. It has a very high range, and it's effect is a single spark as if you've struck flint and steel together. It can light something that's highly combustable from a very large distance. It's only there to take out the concept of firearms. If you have them, this spell will light your ammo or powder keg. Of course, you'd do a LOT of damage before the divination spells figured out what was going on, but after that the advantage is not only gone, but transformed into a liability.

I have had a couple of higher level adventure ideas based around it, but my campaigns haven't ever gone there. But it's a great reason why they've never put tech into making guns. What for? OR internal combustion. Too easily destroyed by those pesky mages.

 

[Dark Jezter]

KaeYoss just gave me the biggest laugh I've had all day. His post is a perfect parody of the poorly-reasoned arguments and obnoxious behavior that message board flamers are famous for.

Keep 'em coming, KaeYoss!

 

[your father is]

I'm for death before dishonor, but only if you are sorting words alphabetically...

I think I may have to steal that...

 

[Ogre Mage]

In 3.5, they are a power gamer's wet dream.