I was just thinking about what my players will probably choose for character races. Since there are only 4 character "races," and two of them are elves, this could present an unpleasant shift in play. There is little to no background material for elves. 95% of Players are notorious for playing elves in a really non-themed, crappy, D*D-style fashion where an elf is little more than a min-maxed human with pointy ears and a penchant for "wine" instead of ale during the gratuitous Tavern-scene at the beginnings of all of my scenarios. Anyways, enough groaning and moaning..

What do you think your players will choose?

Our group will probably choose these races (if they are all allowed):

Ry: Dwarf

Scott: Human "Reiklander" (since it's the only "human" choice at the moment)

Jason: Wood Elf

Barney: High Elf

Chad: Wood Elf

Me: Human (damit!)

Jh

...

I'm pretty sure that all the player in my group will make human characters. Of all the people I've played WHFRP only two have ever made non-human characters. I have kind of been lobbying for one of them to make a dwarf this way around as I think it could be fun to mix it up a bit though. Hehe!

I am strict when it comes to choosing a race to play in WFRP

my golden rule is this: half of the group must be humans, the other half can be dwarfs, elfs or humans.

This is to reflect the ratio of the different player races population in the old world. humanity have the majority in this setting, and its only fair that they should be represented in most adventuring parties. in Thousand thrones, my group had 4 humans (a ranger, a priest, a wizard, a protagonist) 1 halfling (soldier) and 1 wood-elf (kithband warrior). In Path of the damned we had 3 humans (2 knights, a ranger), 1 wood-elf (wizard), 1 dwarf (trollslayer).

come to think of it, I didn`t have to enforce the rule the two last times we made a party of player characters. hmm I have mentioned sure, but the reste the players worked out between themselves.

do you have such rules?

I like that rule. I'm definitely stealing that one

Jay

im letting my guys pick race but im doing the shuffle and take 3 for careers...it seems the most fair to me : )

My PCs all picked up humans in my v2 campaign, but I forbid Elves. I'm not sure if I like the idea of an Elven party in v3, but, as written in another post, we can expect new material covering Dark Elves, Sea Elves, and Ulthuan. So there will be finally a reason for having these Pointy-Ears in your party

I have always used a human only rule in Warhammer.

I generally go for mutual agreement on who gets to play non-human characters, and certainly not have more than half the party as non-human. Human is usually the default option for those who haven't played before.

Basically, I go by "if you have a cool character concept for a dwarf/elf or want to try out that after playing a human in the last campaign I'm happy to let you play it"

Generally I end up with parties of one dwarf, one elf and three humans. Not particularly by enforcing it, it just seems to come together that way

phobiandarkmoon said:

I like that. I sort of do the same and try to avoid players to go only for the POWER PC careers too. In roleplaying you can do well with whatever you start with, if you´re an imaginative and inventive player...

And after all I think Jay owes us a session demo video

Well, the last two campaigns I played, both with 6+ players, had every PC human. I was tempted to take a dwarf both times, but decided on a human character instead.

I can see, however, some players taking elves or dwarves to try out new race-specific careers like the wardancer. While the game is new, anyway.

Humans.

Forever.

seems there is some "ingame" racism going on here. doesnt seem like you get your moneys worth when oyu limit it to humans...there are alot of things for elfs and dwarfs......you just shut that down and limit the game dinamic to me....seems silly

Farin said:

Well, I guess it depends what sort of feel you like. When you restrict the game to humans, you can stil have dwarfs walking around and interacting with the PCs and the odd elf turning up, but it helps to create an air of mystery and other-ness about them. It also helps to convey the human-centric atmosphere of the OW setting and the idea that though the world is strange and fantastical, in some ways, it is also paraochial, and just like home. Which is an excellent way to make your PCs fear going too far from the beaten track.

Of course, if you like having dwarf and elf PCs, that's good too.

Well, dwarves and elves (elves especially) come with some hefty interaction penalites in the majority of the Empire (if done right), and makes it more difficult to be inconspicuous. Besides, I think a lot of 'older' roleplayers tend to have already had their fill of playing "cool-factor" dwarves and elves, and have settled down (mostly) with the versatiity of playing a human.

nWFRP offers four player races (initially, with more to come), but without some GM limitations, looks like it will create parties that are 50% (or more depending on size of the group) elf. I too have tended to prefer the human-centric party because I can more eaily rationalize why a lone elf or dwarf would align themselves with a group of human adventurers in this setting. That's greatly influenced by the The Enemy Within campaign having largely to do with conflicts between diverse human groups, cults, political leaders, etc and taking place largely in human populated areas of the Empire. That was with a system that also offered four player races. With nWFRP (at least initially) limiting it's scope to the Reikland, and presenting the Rekland as being the most cosmopolitan area of the Empire, higher concentrations of non-humans than one might find in other parts of the Empire is central to predominantly non-human groups being more easily rationalized. A lot of it is driven by what type of stories the GM wants to tell (and the players want to play). In TEW, it practically cries out to be mostly humans, and at least one is necessary or Mistaken Identity never gets off the ground. If the PCs are just going to be a band of adventurers exploring the darker parts of the Empire, a greater non-human mix is perfectly acceptable to me. Due to past presentations of Elves and Dwarfs in WFRP, I can still more readily accept a party of all Elves or mostly Elves and a lone human more easily than a party of Elves with a lone Dwarf, but again, since these two races are more frequently interacting with one another in the Reikland than they are elsewhere, it has to be assumed that the PCs are more tolerant than others of their race might be. Just as with TEW, a lot of the tone of this game will likely be set by the first campaign box that FFG releases.

Mal Reynolds said:

Not trying to be mean... but I find that a really bad rule...

First off, the story being presented would from the get go give an impression of what races would fit. What if the players want to play a wood/high elf or dwarf campaign. What if there are special circumstances to why a fewer number of humans travel with other races.

This is really about communication within the gaming group and listning to what the players want - and what the gm want and find a middleground. But again lay out the premisses of the campaign beforehand - then there should be natural selection of what would work and what wouldnt - and if players comes up with a cool idea flow with it.

The best rule in roleplaying is learn to say YES and work with it, players and game masters alike, or else the group will not really evolve. A gm that always says no, represents something that do not really trust his/her own group.

It's many years, by now, that I only allow humans in my games (not only WFRP).

Though initally this was cause of discussions, now no one of my players is interested in these "creatures".
This has nothing to do with the system but with the setting.

Everything is darker, grittier, brutish and short-lived if seen with your "own" eyes ( the eyes of a human).
I've tested this approch even with veteran D&D players that, normally, created PC with the wildest choices of races.

When your PC will see an ogre or an orc or a beastman some link with the player will born.
Both the PC and the player are of the some race. The reaction to something so alien, so horrible, is more authentic, more ... profound ... more felt.

How can react an High Elf at the sight of a goblin? Or of a mutation? In case an elf 356 year old?
But sure you'll know how YOU will react to such monstrosities.

KjetilKverndokken said:

I'm pretty certain he'd break that rule if he was making an elf or dwarf -themed game or with special circumstances, but we're discussing the default setting and focus - i.e. the Empire with humanity. But yeah, I'm pretty much disagreeing whilst agreeing.

DeathFromAbove said:

I agree.

In my experience, Halflings, Elves and Dwarves always seem to trivialize the potency of the gritty atmosphere that I try to create in my stories.

At least, the friends that I've always played with tend to only portray halflings as ever cheerful comic relief, dwarves as scottish grumps with a pile of clichéd catch-phrases ("Heeeere comes da dwarf!") and elves as snobs with little interest in the human based plots happening around them.

Ugh. I definitely am not too pleased with the choice of High Elf as a character race, honestly.

mac40k said:

See, this isn't really what's going to happen. I mean, v2 has 4 races, only 1 of which is human. Does that mean only 25% of the players in a group are going to be human? No, not really, and the same hold true here. I do think, though, that there might be a few more elves in groups right after the initial release of 3e. Why? Because they are 'new'. Lots of people like to try out the newest/flashiest thing. They want to try the wood elf wardancer, or the high elf swordmaster, etc, because they haven't before. Like in MMOs when a new class/race is released people flock to try it out, but most don't stay with it.

I like the split between High Elf and Wood Elf. Warhammer Fantasy has always had those distinctions, and they *are* quite separate in attitude, skill sets, knowledge, culture, etc.

Now, the game probably could have included the difference as a background package or something (although Warhammer Lore treats them as separate races). Then they could use a similar 'background package' feature for Brettonian humans, or dwarves from a different clan, etc. I'm not bothered by having them separate races, though.

No hard and fast rules, but Player preference seems to be to pick PC race in the following order:

1. Humans
2. Dwarfs
3. Halflings/Ogres (Picked with roughly the same frequency)
4. Elves

With very few Players ever picking to be an Elf and most choosing either Human or Dwarf as PC's.

In all the years I've played WFRP I've seen exactly one elf PC. And that was a guy who nearly always plays elves or at least elf-like characters in every system. Except from this one elf I guess it's about 70% humans, 30% dwarves. We never had a rule against elf PCs, it's just nobody wanted to play them in the first place. I'm curious if the new balance of the races affects that in any way, but I doubt it. Maybe the new background material they will have to publish will make it easier and more interesting to play an elf. Because right now most of my players know as much about elves as the common peasant from the Ostermark. Which on the other hand actually is kind of nice, because they can play their characters realistically superstitious and distrustful.

Well, we'll see how they introduce the two elf races, and then just look what happens. I don't think the elves ever gonna be the new favourite races in my group or the other groups I've played with. But I don't know about the new players FFG hopes to reach with their new game.

In 1e, Dwarfs are basically short humans with a bad attitude. Players (being human) can still readily relate to Dwarf mentality. Only one person in my experience ever chose to play a Halfling. They got shorted on stats during chargen and had nothing interesting about them to make up for it. However, Halflings, moreso than Dwarfs even, were basically small humans. By contrast, the WFRP Elves were presented as truly alien. They are simultaneously both claustrophobic and agoraphobic, fearing closed in places as much as wide open plains. They didn't require sleep, but periodically needed downtime to edit their memories so that their brains didn't become overcrowded. This allowed them to work for years on a special gift and then completely forget about it so that they could enjoy being equally surprized when the receipient opened the gift. They would frequently forget unpleasant experiences, which prevented them from being able to learn from mistakes as the behavior that lead up to the unpleasantness often got swept away as well. Their long lives gave them little sense of urgency about most things, yet their constantly edited memories often made them seem more childish in nature since they often failed to display the wisdom one expects to go hand in hand with age. Few people could actually roleplay a WFRP Elf well. These new Elves are not the same Elves I am used to.

Also, unlike other systems, we had many diverse careers to make characters distinguishable without having to rely on race as a defining characteristic, so human-centric games were more easily accommodated than some other systems.

KjetilKverndokken said:

I think you read to much into it my ruling (not that I think you`re rude) din sotraværing.

And its what you say, we usually find a middleground, or work around my rule (not that we break it). My players don`t come up with a campaign, that`s my job. And I don`t solely focus on a dwarf or elf campaign, but usually something that can allow any race and career to join in. It has happend that during the campaign this human : demihuman ratio have changed. Often when the PC die (yes I am not a kind GM), this can occur.

I trust my group, but my philosopy is always to have "No" as a defeault attitude. I might seems harsh, but its not really so. I don`t give in for every temptation the player could have. Its about creating good and entertaining stories, not to give my players any desires they wish for. They will have to work for it. But I don`t automatically say no, I say nnnn....maybe.

Mal Reynolds said:

I'm a Larviking, I just live on Sotra