So I was talking with my players the other day about the characters in our group and was curious why they chose the races they did and what their second choice was for their species selection. Right now, we've got six PCs with three humans (Smuggler, Colonist, and Technician), a Rodian (Hired Gun), a Bothan (Explorer), and a Weequay (Bounty Hunter).

I'm curious how many folks play humans and other species and what the most popular (for lack of a better term) species selections are for folks on this board out of the ones available to play in Edge of the Empire thus far.

So what do you play? And why do you play him or her? Roleplaying purposes? Specific stat purposes? Aesthetic appeal?

Currently Official Available Species for EotE

• Human (and Corellian)
• Aqualish
• Bothan
• Chiss
• Drall
• Droid
• Duros
• Gand
• Klatooinian
• Rodian
• Selonian
• Toydarian
• Trandoshan
• Twi'lek
• Weequay
• Wookiee

I play a Human Smuggler (Pilot).The main reason is I just like his developed back story from Eriadu and how it will hopefully dovetail with the Imperial loyalist/bootlickers there in the post-Tarkin era. I have no particularly bias toward playing Humans and in fact may play a Bothan down the road as I was prone to doing back in my d20 days.

Rodian Smuggler Pilot

No reason beside that I got it in my head that it would be cool.

We're all tied up at one a piece!

• Humans 1
• Bothans 1
• Rodians 1

I've never actually gotten to play. Only ever been the GM. So I'm going to go with my favourite NPC tag-along:

Drall Explorer Archaeologist/Politico

I started with the concept of a fast-talking, panic-stricken, tenured professor who occasionally went on expeditions. The images of a greying ball of fur wearing a Pith helmet, strapped with an over-sized knapsack, inching his way through some ruins, while rambling about the species the ruins once belonged to, ticked me to an extent that can't be properly expressed in type. In game, he's constantly annoying my players with his random drivel about wherever they currently are.

If I ever get to play this game, I will probably bring him back.

I didn't want to play a human. I chose to be a twilek because I really didn't know the other races very well. My Star Wars knowledge is based on the movies and I haven't seen them in years so most of the aliens are just weird memories to me. Twileks stood out because one got fed to the rancor after about a minute of screen time and another got blasted a gazillion times after about the same amount of screen time and with less lines... which means the bar was set pretty low for being better than any twilek from the movies.

I also thought they were pretty. It might be shallow but I didn't want to play something weird or obviously based on an earth creature. I love the idea of having the equal of long hair that I wouldn't have to wash or style separately from how I wash or care for the rest of me. And exotic colors come standard!

Plus I was supposed to be our group's face and they have good stuff for doing that and I wanted to play a doctor and they're good at that too.

I get hung up on aesthetics, too. So, Bothans are out.

Beyond that though, I feel like I need to play a character's culture - so if I was going to play an alien, I'd feel obligated to come across as an alien at the table... and that can be tough when you're going off a few paragraphs in a book! I know that aliens in Star Wars are basically humans with different-shaped heads, but the idea of, say, an Ithorian who goes around saying, 'hey bro, wassup?' really turns me off.

So, I generally go human.

This is actually really interesting stuff. IJ, I had that same kind of problem during the d20 campaign I GMed for about eight years. One of my players chose to play a Dashade Force-using assassin...he basically used the most obsequious stereotypes coupled with inane modern jargon before killing his opponents...I finally had to kill him off just to make it stop!

So we have:

• Humans 2
• Bothans 1
• Drall 1
• Rodians 1
• Twi'lek 1

I haven't played yet as I'm stuck with GMing duties (as always: 12 years RPG experience 6 sessions as a player ) but I got a Droid Hired Gun (Enforcer) drawn up in case I get the chance.

First game: 3 Humans (1 was rebuilt as a Sullustan once the Age of Rebellion Beta was obtained), 1 Wookiee, 1 Trandoshan, 1 Droid.

Second game: 2 Humans, 1 Twi'lek, 1 Klatooinian, 1 Bothan, 1 Aqualish (Quara).

After the first game, nobody wants to play a Droid for various reasons. I've also noticed that our female players won't play anything that can't be 'pretty' - which so far has been Humans and a Twi'lek (although one considered a Chiss).

What character is your's, HappyDaze?

What character is your's, HappyDaze?

I'm the GM.

I play a human bounty hunter. Humans are probably my favorite race because they can take 10 obligation and get a 3 in 4 stats with a 2 in the other 2. If you sprint for dedication, not having a 4 doesn't hurt you too much. This is of course is better for generalist builds rather than specialist builds. Humans also get 2 cross-career skills to start with, which is really nice.

I often like to play humans in fantasy settings, because I'm a human, and I feel like I would be a human in those settings too, and I like to play who I might be were I born under a different set of circumstances.

As far as other races go, I tend to look at mechanics first and work out the rest later.

In the campaign I'm playing in, besides my human bounty hunter, there are:
A human smuggler
A droid mechanic/doctor

A human politico
A trandoshan marauder

In another short campaign I just finished GMing the characters were
A Nautolan Assassin

A Droid Scholar

A Wookiee mechanic

A wookiee marauder

A Squib Scoundrel

My character is a Duro/Male. My wife's character is a Bothan/Female.

I wish they had Arkanians, Arcona, Gotals or Quarren.

I play a human bounty hunter. Humans are probably my favorite race because they can take 10 obligation and get a 3 in 4 stats with a 2 in the other 2.

To be fair, Bothans, Gand, Rodians, Twi'leks, Klatooinians, and several other species can do this too. The trick is having 100+ starting XP. Of course, if you play in a big group (6+ players) then this option is not available.

Interestingly, I've always played Humans (or near humans).

My very first character was Residian - a home made race that was Corellians with the serial numbers filed off (and some Gallifreyian-ish biology thrown in). My next two characters were his daughter and granddaughter, so more home-made near-humans.

After that I did a human from the Down Below streets of Courscant, a Stormtrooper clone that had a manufacturing defect (so another human) and now I'm playing a coreworld noble slumming it up on the outer rim - so human, given the core-centric views on Aliens.

So far, my group is 2 humans and 1 Twi'lek. I have 2 more to join, one of whom may be a Wookiee, and the other one is frankly too hard to call. He can and will play anything.

I'd like to see one of my group handle a droid. I'm sure they'd do a fantastic job at it.

I'd like to see one of my group handle a droid. I'm sure they'd do a fantastic job at it.

In this system, you have to really want to play a droid to have any kind of positive experience with it, because the mechanics tend to be lacking for anything other than a hyper-specialized build. This is because of the Characteristic scores and Starting XP that they have. Often a 'well-rounded' droid is looking at something like 3,3,3,2,1,1 or 3,3,2,2,2,1 both of which are sub-par compared to almost any other species.

I'm playing a Caamasi Jedi Initiate. Don't recall exactly why I decided upon this...I think it was a combination of wanting a starting 3 Willpower for Force power use, not liking the look/feel of many of the other options, and generally thinking the Caamasi are pretty cool. Oh, and also because I'd decided from the outset that I was going to be playing an aspiring Jedi who was fairly pacific, seeking to avoid violence first and foremost, turning to other options only when necessary, so Caamasi kind of fit. Now that I've played the character for a bit, that last point has become fairly central to the character, and he's gone out of his way to protect even the crew's enemies (dousing an opponent set on fire by the party's bounty hunter with a flamethrower, sparing a prisoner from torture at the hands of some of the more bloodthirsty crewers, and sneaking a captured group of foes with us onto the ship when making a planetary escape to avoid leaving them stranded on a hostile world).

Filling out the group I'm in we have a:

• Bothan computers guy
• Squib pilot/skilled marksman
• Human pilot
• Wookie FSEm (Exile?)

I'd like to see one of my group handle a droid. I'm sure they'd do a fantastic job at it.

In this system, you have to really want to play a droid to have any kind of positive experience with it, because the mechanics tend to be lacking for anything other than a hyper-specialized build. This is because of the Characteristic scores and Starting XP that they have. Often a 'well-rounded' droid is looking at something like 3,3,3,2,1,1 or 3,3,2,2,2,1 both of which are sub-par compared to almost any other species.

Well, sure, if you only look at the numbers. But Droids don't need to eat, sleep, or breath, and get a free point of extra Soak.

As for the OP's question of species choice, well, my game incorporates the races and Careers from the AoR Beta, so:

Human (Clone) Tactician - the player felt a Human would be the easiest for him to get into the right mindset

Human (Corellian) Pilot - chosen because "Corellians are cool," and because she is saving her Twi-lek character for next story

Droid (Magnaguard) Marauder - because it is a Magnaguard, and the player has an affinity for artificial lifeforms

Mon Calamari Saboteur - I have always wanted to have a Mon Cal lure his enemies into an ambush, then shout "Its a trap!" as he detonates the bombs under their feet

the player has an affinity for artificial lifeforms

Uh... Really? How is this affinity expressed?

I haven't played yet but only GMed however, I have a human Scholar in the starting blocks and as soon as one of the others picks up I'll roll him out (being that he is 70 they might actually have to roll him out...)

I choos him because of the fact that I like to play a human in a human centric universe, eventhough he has no love for the Empire.

The party I GM for is:

Human Scout (Esthetic reason)

Twi'lek Politico (Roleplaying reasons)

R2 unit Mechanic (Love for R2 I guess)

Wookie Pilot (roleplaying reason)

Rodian Bountyhunter (Stat reasons)

the player has an affinity for artificial lifeforms

Uh... Really? How is this affinity expressed?

Hugging. No pants.

Oskara: Female, Twi'lek, Bounty Hunter (Gadgeteer, Survivalist, Assassin) - I enjoyed the build (talents and skill mix) of the pregen and also the juxtaposition of the cold and ruthless exterior against the very human motivations (she's put herself in a dangerous career because she's looking out for somebody - her sister)

Pash: Male, Human (but medical gear usually lists him as "Human?"), Smuggler (Pilot, Scoundrel) - everyone enjoyed his take on the pregen (we encouraged him to continue with Pash... I think he'd have built something weirder if not for us)

Manny: Male, Bothan, Colonist (Politico, Theif) - good for the niche + comedy gold

CC-2N8: Droid (BX series), Hired Gun (Marauder, Slicer) - his was the last character built, and chosen to be as different from the other PCs as possible, I suspect

Gand / Bounty Hunter / FSE

I went with the Gand mostly due to the little fluff I could find in regards to the Findsman / Januwine-jika. I liked the idea that Gand was striving to be the best at what he does. Sure, anybody could do that, but the RPer in me really wants to see Gand have a ceremony to get his name.

I'd like to see one of my group handle a droid. I'm sure they'd do a fantastic job at it.

In this system, you have to really want to play a droid to have any kind of positive experience with it, because the mechanics tend to be lacking for anything other than a hyper-specialized build. This is because of the Characteristic scores and Starting XP that they have. Often a 'well-rounded' droid is looking at something like 3,3,3,2,1,1 or 3,3,2,2,2,1 both of which are sub-par compared to almost any other species.

In my games, I've allowed droids to start with a '2' instead of a '1' in intellect before buying stats. It essentially gives them 20 extra xp, and puts them still behind the other races when you count their extra skills, but not so badly. I think the designers over-rated the value of the droid traits.