[Crunch]

Why not take the opportunity to do what the "races" in Shadowrun were sort of designed to do. Which is allow a conversation about race and racism stripped of the real world loading. Run a game where these are the issues your players have to deal with.

[benedictmercury]

No. Just the sixth point is more expensive. And factored into 'same cost' is that at chargen to be 'dang smart' you have to burn the 'max attribute' allotment. Andd I'm just trying it out. Jeez, dude.

Michael--I'm sorry to have given that impression. I truly don't see anyone that way.  But then, someone called my view hypocritical and many insist on confusing my stance with declaring implausibility, so perhaps you'll be willing to construe some of my retort as not directed at you. I'm not implying anyone's racist. Just because I can't see past a thing doesn't mean it can't be seen past without evil. Many here are veering from 'counterpoint' to 'you're uptight and wrong,' though, so if digging my heels in further to riposte reads like a broad accusation, well, take me in context.

And how is it just as racist to make the sixth point harder to reach than saying they're a mentally inferior people?

[jokuhuna]

   
The idea that everyone is exactly equal at birth is just feel good propaganda.
Its the old argument nature vs nurture. Twin studies, where both twins grew up in different foster families, have shown that the "smartness" of the child is not really related to the environment.
 
Metahumans are not Humans. They are another species. Why should they be the same as humans in logic or intuition but not in other attributes? Just because our current cultural ideology  wants every cluster of cells in the womb to be exactly the same, doesn't make it true.
Another example, ask a fitness trainer if some people have better dispositions to muscle grow then others. There is even a difference between male and female for humans. The brain is just another body part.
 
I really struggle to find a reason to think that the brain of every person that is ever born is exactly the same. We all know there are differences in humans brains right from the beginning, handicaps that are heritage. 
But the definition of a handicap is just something our culture makes up. You can not really think there is a point were every ones brain is equal and there is another point were you are handicapped. What about cases were doctors can't decide between handicapped or not? 
 
tl:dr Brains are not equal in humans. Why should the brain of another species be equal to it?

[Reaver]

Let's reverse this argument for a second:

Why is it that 2 of the five "races" in shadowrun are physically handicapped? Isn't this racist??? I mean, orks, trolls and dwarves all get way stronger body attributes WITH higher ceilings then normal humans and elves! Isn't this a racist stand point by the developers given the pollutants, viri, and diseases all around in the 6th world?

Wouldn't the "politically correct" thing to do is give ALL the races of shadowrun the same level of potential body, reguardless of physical mass, density, or immune system development???

.....

There are two factors at work in the races and their attributes.

1: destintiveness. Lets face it, when playing a fanasty game (don't care what system) having options other then just plain jane "human" is an appealing factor to some. They like the thought of being something other then human. And, they like that there is a mathematical difference to their choice (stat wise)

2: game balance. While it is wonderful to talk about the "unfairness of X over Y" in relation to the norm, there HAS to a 'balancing' factor put in place. A "minus" for a "plus" so to speak. Yes that means that certain achtypes are not as favorable to all races... But that is what happens all games.... A trade off. For trolls, having increased muscle mass and body means that they have lower mental stats. They trade power and survivability for acedemic and technical ability.
.....

Listen, if you really want to do away with what you see as a mechanic supporting a racist philosophy (nevermind the fact that elves, dwarves, orks, and troll are IMAGINARY) the easiest solution is to state that all players use the 'human' limits as a base. Problem solved! Now no one is better then anyone else at anything and their race just becomes a fluff descriptor. (no issue of having cake and eating it too)


Incidentally, what you are arguing is the same thing that MOM (Mothers of Metahumans) argues: We are all equal and capable of the same potential...... Which (meta game speaking) isn't exactly the case (as you point out!). And that is the issue here.... You are meta-gaming

You are looking at a character sheet and just crunching numbers and saying "Hey! This isn't fair!!" without putting it into the context of the world.... Which, when looking at intangibles like "logic" and "reason" is easy to do... After all, what IS the difference between a 4 logic and a 6 logic in-game wise??? Several people (including the OP I believe!) have stated they know many people in professions we assume to need brainpower that are actually morons... (which, in it's self seems to be an error....after all, if it takes smarts to be 'X', then how could they be 'X' if they are dumb?!?!) just how smart is a troll with a logic of 4??? What does that 4 (in SR world) actually mean??? Can they understand quantum physics?? String theory??? Tie their shoes with out making a knot???

Chances are, most trolls will have an intelligence in the range of the vast majority of humans. They will learn, understand and comprehend just as well as everyone else will... But, (by game mechanics) will never win the "world's smartest Meta-human" award (damn dwarves!!) or they may have to spend a little more time and paper trying to solve complex mathimatical questions without a calculator. This doesn't make them retarded... or even stupid... It's just a limitation... Like many of us have... And don't realize.

[GiraffeShaman]

One of the great things about RPG systems is tthat once you buy it, it's yours. You can do whatever you want with it. I've ran fantasy campaigns using an altered version of SR rules. Some people have done post apocalypse campaigns using SR rules, sometimes with magic and without. If the Trolls bother you, simply remove them in your games. Most of us want them in there. But I find SR's gun combat and wound system fun on it's own, even with various fantasy elements removed.

If they do exist in the game, there has to be some kind of balancing factor. As is, the game designers already have had problems with balancing Trolls. If you removed Logic penalties, they'd have to make Trolls even less agile or the like, perhaps pushing them into the unplayable category.

One possibility might be some kind of quality that allows a Troll to treat Logic as if they were Human. This would be separate from the already existing Exceptional attribute quality, so a player could take both qualities. The important thing is that they have to pay a price in Karma to make it fair to non Troll players.

[benedictmercury]

Um.

I think I'll bow out now.  Thanks, everyone--okay, some of you--for a useful examination of the topic. 

I can't help but find it odd, and a little troubling, that so many people are in such a hurry to defend the plausibility of a hermetically sealed and ahistorical game setting that nevertheless dips freely into recent American and global history...except when it's attractive to ignore major strands of it.  Everyone's awfully in a hurry to tell me why the game is immune to the question I posed, and while I find some arguments fair, others are just...well, they could stand some breaths between sentences.  And fewer exclamation points.  The depth of confidence with which some here have declared 'Nope! Not similar! They're a different SPECIES, bro, so it's not at all weird!' is a little, well, weird.  I'm a bit disappointed no one wants to address my points about the game as an artifact situated in, you know, the history of the world we're all actually from.  There are resonances that might--might--be picking up between this tidy bubble of a game world and the world we all still live in.  Resonances that raise questions about how we interface with our cute lil' bubble of a game world. 

But cool.  Thanks for considering it.  Game balance:  FTW.

[Reaver]

Um.

I think I'll bow out now.  Thanks, everyone--okay, some of you--for a useful examination of the topic. 

I can't help but find it odd, and a little troubling, that so many people are in such a hurry to defend the plausibility of a hermetically sealed and ahistorical game setting that nevertheless dips freely into recent American and global history...except when it's attractive to ignore major strands of it.  Everyone's awfully in a hurry to tell me why the game is immune to the question I posed, and while I find some arguments fair, others are just...well, they could stand some breaths between sentences.  And fewer exclamation points.  The depth of confidence with which some here have declared 'Nope! Not similar! They're a different SPECIES, bro, so it's not at all weird!' is a little, well, weird.  I'm a bit disappointed no one wants to address my points about the game as an artifact situated in, you know, the history of the world we're all actually from.  There are resonances that might--might--be picking up between this tidy bubble of a game world and the world we all still live in.  Resonances that raise questions about how we interface with our cute lil' bubble of a game world. 

But cool.  Thanks for considering it.  Game balance:  FTW.

Let's see,
a world where the 1% gets richer, and 99% get poorer? Check and check.
A world where making money trumps the environment? Check and check.
A world where racism is rampant? Yep and yep!
A world where religious and ethnic strife abounds? Yep and yep.
A world where people are treated by the value of their bank accounts? Uh-huh, and yep.
A world where life has no value other then labour? Right and right.
A world with no social justice? True and true.
.
..
...
Should I really continue the list? Or do you see just some of the similarities between the world of SR and our own??
There are many more out there that could be discussed, but "it's a racist thing to make Trolls dumber then humans" isn't really one of them. If trolls where physically the same as humans, then MAYBE that argument would hold water, but they are not physically (or genetically) the same as humans. They are 'removed' from humans by their genetic make up and evolution (magical as it is) as we are removed from the great apes of Africa (which are considered to be our cousins!) I have yet to meet an ape that can learn string theory... Even though they are intelligent (hmm, does that make me racist??) trolls, orcs, dwarves and elves are all genetically different from humans, even though 'human' is the base stock that they came from, just as humans are different from apes, even though we share a common ancestor in our distant past.

I ask you this question, do you find it racist cause its 'only' 60 years in the future? Would you feel more comfortable if the timeline said 300 years? (be honest)
If you want to turn back the clock 60 years, all the way to 1953... Well African Americans were still not allowed to use the same restrooms as "real folk" or go to the same schools. An African American doing anything but manual labor was outrageous! THAT was/is racism.

But saying in meta-game terms "trolls physically and mentally different then humans" is a form of racism??? Nope. That's a 'fact' of their biology. And stating a biological difference is not racism... Especially in meta-game terms.
HOWEVER!
Saying in game "trolls are only good for manual labor cause their are retarded!" is racism! In game, these types of views and attitudes are exactly what keep trolls from being CEOs or scientists... Not their meta-game stats. It is this attitude and opinion that organizations like MOM are trying to fight and change... But they have an uphill battle to be fought IMO... After all, this isn't a case of skin color (trolls and irks are not green BTW, but the same colors as the rest of humanity... Hispanic, Caucasian, African, Asian, Arab, Indian, etc features and skin tones), but the fact that trolls are 10 feet tall, have horns, extremely long arms, and the strength of two grown men and weigh the same as 3 grown men!  They ARE different!

Are they related to humans? Sure.
Are they intelligent? Yep
Can they interbreed with humans? To a degree, yes (offspring have a 50/50 chance of being troll, or human.. No hybrids. And troll/troll couplings always result in troll offspring)
At best they are cousins to generic humans. At worse they are genetic throwback/forwards of humans. But they are NOT the same as humans... As evidenced by their extreme height, weight, limited lifespan, extra appendages, extra teeth, different visual spectrums, and knobby epidermis... Just to name a few things.

[UmaroVI]

Worrying about it being "racist" for them to also have mental differences, not just immediately obvious physical ones, strikes me as rather hypocritical and, more importantly, largely missing the point of fantasy metahuman races in the first place.

It's not really "missing the point," though, given that Shadowrun orks were in the older editions very clearly meant to be a metaphor for black people - and with that in mind, it's strange that in Shadowrun the racists are right. Over time SR has backed off of the metaphor, but kept enough of the vestiges (orxploitation, for example) that it's still noticeable.

If trolls where physically the same as humans, then MAYBE that argument would hold water, but they are not physically (or genetically) the same as humans. They are 'removed' from humans by their genetic make up and evolution (magical as it is) as we are removed from the great apes of Africa (which are considered to be our cousins!) I have yet to meet an ape that can learn string theory... Even though they are intelligent (hmm, does that make me racist??) trolls, orcs, dwarves and elves are all genetically different from humans, even though 'human' is the base stock that they came from, just as humans are different from apes, even though we share a common ancestor in our distant past.

100 years ago, you could replace "trolls" with "[black people]" and a good number of people would agree with you.

[ZeConster]

I can't help but find it odd, and a little troubling, that so many people are in such a hurry to defend the plausibility of a hermetically sealed and ahistorical game setting that nevertheless dips freely into recent American and global history...except when it's attractive to ignore major strands of it.

So you find it odd and troubling that when you all but call people racist for taking a game mechanism for granted that you find racist, they'll defend themselves against your accusations? I'm not sure you really understand how people work.

[CanRay]

Actually, Troll/Troll couples don't ALWAYS result in Trolls, they sometimes (rarely) have humans, elves, or dwarves.  If the baby is human, there is a better than usual chance for Goblinization later on in life.

So, yeah, when that mean looking Dwarf guy says he is a Troll, it might not mean that he is a mean bugger on the Matrix...

[Reaver]

Actually, Troll/Troll couples don't ALWAYS result in Trolls, they sometimes (rarely) have humans, elves, or dwarves.  If the baby is human, there is a better than usual chance for Goblinization later on in life.

So, yeah, when that mean looking Dwarf guy says he is a Troll, it might not mean that he is a mean bugger on the Matrix...

You sure about that CanRay? I was under the impression that most births and UGE/goblinization had normalized (disappeared) by the 2050s....

[Sengir]

Its the old argument nature vs nurture

And the fact that this argument has been around forever might give you an idea why simply declaring to be in possession of the sole truth on a web forum is a bit..well...

Metahumans are not Humans. They are another species.

Then a human and a troll would produce hybrid offspring with hereditary species traits from both.

[Reaver]

Its the old argument nature vs nurture

And the fact that this argument has been around forever might give you an idea why simply declaring to be in possession of the sole truth on a web forum is a bit..well...

Metahumans are not Humans. They are another species.
[/quote]
Then a human and a troll would produce hybrid offspring with hereditary species traits from both.
[/quote]

The problem here is that you are dealing with awakened genes.... And they don't really respond well to general, universal classifications
Physically, all the meta variants are both genetically the same, yet different... Unlike 'regular' humans and our 'races' (boy I hate that term, but better wording fails me ATM) with only a 0.0000000001% divergence from same Caucasian to Asian to African to Arab.
A genetist summed it up beautifully though: "there is more genetic diversity in a pack monkeys in the local zoo then there is in the entire human population."

.....

But that statement proves false when dealing with the meta-variants... There is no question that we are related, but we are still widely genetically different from the other meta variants (meaning human to troll to dwarf to elf to Ork)

[Dragonslayer]

Either some slag has been selling these kids rose-tinted mirrorshades, or MOM has seriously stepped up its programs on college campuses.

Pretty sure his mirrorshades are purple-tinted. They love drek like this.

[benedictmercury]

Mate, I'd spend less time letting adults know how above their conversation you are and more time rummaging around in the code-name bargain bin for something less hackneyed than 'Dragonslayer.'

*

Meanwhile, ZeConster, Reaver, etc, I'll reiterate that I really don't mean to accuse the game of intentional racism, or you for being fine with the design. Truly. I myself am not comfortable with the similarity between post-human sUbspecies limits and very recent arguments about inferior races, and I find the act of divesting the two of any association at all to be willful, artificial and, for me, too convenient. I do not want to play in a world that incorporates, yes, so many other real-world inequalities, but enshrines as biological fact one of the core discriminations that *led* to those inequalities. So i change my game, problem solved. I just wanted to know what others thought on the subject, and to argue my point. We can do that without going Red/Blue state. If you feel accused because of your allegiance with a thing I object to, that's up to you. I get your arguments: they're different, it's a fact, and no, observing facts is not racism. How we define in-game facts does or does not have political resonance as a creative act; you say nay, I say yea. Many smart people have argued both sides of the question of whether art can ever be apolitical and dwell in a vacuum, and none were therefore racist because of their stance. If you're catching some tone from me, it's probably just because I've found your argumentative style to be a little condescending, absolutist and dismissive of what I think are sticky, interesting questions.