"You're a half elf? Really?" From the P.A. Podcasts

[Hussar]

I'm sorry, your logic is still lacking.

Your main argument seems to be: Unless you go out of your way to be an irritating as hell stereotype and ensure everyone around you knows at all times you're x race, you're a dirty power gamer.

Hey, fun fact: Maybe some elves act like humans because, holy crap, acting like something isn't an inherent part of your race. Elves do not have the Haughty Jerks gene. Dwarves are not genetically inclined to speak in bad Scottish accents.

Umm, no?

Please show me where I said that. In fact, there are numerous places where I say the exact opposite of that.

My main argument is, if you're going to play something, PLAY IT. Portray it in such a way that everyone at the table has an idea of what you are.

That does not mean (again for the umpteenth time) you need to go around beating your chest crying "I am Klingon" every time you turn around. All it takes is, ((hang on, I'll do it really big so you won't miss it yet again))

30 SECONDS

of effort once in a while.

Is that clear enough?

 

[Wepwawet]

I can understand your point, but all this rant because of an Half-Elf?! A half-human who is confused with a human? Come on, you could have come up with a better example. There are far worse things in role playing.

And I still say it's the other players' fault not knowing the guy is an half-elf.
I'm sure they were too busy practicing their fake accents to hear this guy saying he has slightly pointy ears and a goatee

 

[Hussar]

Well, Wepwawet, this rant isn't exactly just because of the podcast. It's something that's flown up my left nostril for a while. For some reason it's always the elf (or half elf) players who do this. Everyone else seems to be able to portray their character well enough to be recognized.

But, unfortunately, everyone got too tied up in the specific example. Meh.

 

[wedgeski]

I'll RP my race if it's important. If it's not important to the character I'm trying to play, the role I'm trying to fill, or the slot I'm taking up in a Friday night hack'n'slash one-shot, it doesn't even flit through the tiniest recesses of my poor overloaded brain.

If I have no story to tell about my race, if it's simply who I am and who I've always been, it gets no screen time. Why bother? The character, the textures that make him or her unique in all of the characters I've played in my roleplaying life, is simply elsewhere.

 

[Storminator]

My main argument is, if you're going to play something, PLAY IT. Portray it in such a way that everyone at the table has an idea of what you are.

30 SECONDS

of effort once in a while.

Is that clear enough?

Are you sure it's Omin's fault?

Didn't you, despite the many, many, many references to Omin as the CEO, the boss, the founder of Acquisitions Inc., the hiring manager, the writer of the articles of incorporation, etc, still think Binwin was in charge?

Perhaps the fault lies elsewhere...

PS

 

[Jack99]

I would point out that the version you are talking about was released about twenty years after the original version. In the original, Decker's race was totally not an issue. Like I said, it's a bit of a ret-con because he's now a huge name director and can get away with it.

Actually, it has been public knowledge that this was the ending that he wanted originally, but he was convinced/bullied by the studio to change the ending, because they thought it would sell better.

 

[Wepwawet]

I'll RP my race if it's important. If it's not important to the character I'm trying to play, the role I'm trying to fill, or the slot I'm taking up in a Friday night hack'n'slash one-shot, it doesn't even flit through the tiniest recesses of my poor overloaded brain.

Sure!
But most of the PC races have something different enough that a bit of RP pointing it out should come out naturally.
I have a water and fire Genasi Warden. He's an elemental warrior from a desert and that's what's important about him. But everyone at the table knows his race because he's always sweating or once he participated in an orgy underwater (important ritual, don't ask); and when we're being stealthy I stay far away because of my burning hair.

Ok, genasi may be an extreme example, but in our party there's a Shadar-Kai and... Well, she was in a ritual kissing and embracing a Deva priestess, and the DM planned it so that that embrace would look like an Yin-Yang (dark skin against light skin.. btw they where naked). That image was lost on me and probably on the others, because we weren't picturing the Shadar-Kai dark skin in her PC.
She's *just* a Rogue (rogues are so boooring)

 

[Voadam]

Well, Wepwawet, this rant isn't exactly just because of the podcast. It's something that's flown up my left nostril for a while. For some reason it's always the elf (or half elf) players who do this. Everyone else seems to be able to portray their character well enough to be recognized.

But, unfortunately, everyone got too tied up in the specific example. Meh.

Pass/Agg snark aside, this was the World's Largest Dungeon. It was a pretty high hack campaign. Yet, funnily enough, as Merk points out, I remember clearly the goblin thief at the beginning, the kobold bard, the orc barbarian, even the dwarf cleric that only lasted a couple of sessions at the beginning.

Yet, the only reason people knew the elf ninja was an elf, is because I brought it up ((more along the lines of "Where is that "%)$%$(% elf boy? He's late again?" and the fact that after we booted his backside out of the group, I killed his character in a rather gruesome way. )) The only reason he took elf was for the Dex bonus.

Was it this one guy or was he only one of a couple of times elf players have ticked you off? Any bad experiences with half-elves as well?

 

[Voadam]

Ok, genasi may be an extreme example, but in our party there's a Shadar-Kai and... Well, she was in a ritual kissing and embracing a Deva priestess, and the DM planned it so that that embrace would look like an Yin-Yang (dark skin against light skin.. btw they where naked). That image was lost on me and probably on the others, because we weren't picturing the Shadar-Kai dark skin in her PC.
She's *just* a Rogue (rogues are so boooring)

Aren't shadar kai pale skinned? I've never used them and its been a while since I looked them up in my fiend folio but my memory is pale skinned and not dark skinned. The 3e FF art gallery seems to back up that image.Shadar Kai

 

[Wepwawet]

Aren't shadar kai pale skinned? I've never used them and its been a while since I looked them up in my fiend folio but my memory is pale skinned and not dark skinned. The 3e FF art gallery seems to back up that image.Shadar Kai

Damn! LOL
Anyway, my point is that only that time (apparently for the wrong motive) did I remember she was supposed to be a Shadar Kai... And it felt very strange