[MijRai]

I've never seen one played, ever. 

[Whiskeyjack]

Haven't seen one. I think my current game is the first one ever with a PC dwarf, to boot, and he's a rigger.

[Blue Rose]

Listening to the hidden grid actual play. There's on one their team a few runs in.   First I've seen.

[Fabe]

You know, outside of that one archetype in the SR1 Street Samurai Catalouge, I can't say that I have ever heard of a Dwarf Street Sam. Is this a thing that people actually play and am I just blind?

We got a first time player whos playing a street sam in my group so yeah people do play them.

[Wakshaani]

It's rare. My last group had a Dwarven Mercenary (aka, "The trunk Dwarf", so named due to his habit of hiding in the rigger's car's trunk, then stepping out only long enough to crack heads, then go back into the trunk) ... but I've never had a Dwarven samurai.

Indeed, outside of a single Elf, every Sammy I've ever had in a game was human.

You'd think more Orks would have signed up, but, never in my home games.

[Thanael]

The best part of being a dwarf is other dwarfs. "Fist-bump, bring it in."

And then there's this. Dwarves network with other Dwarves, and there's a silent brotherhood that you know you can count on. Bar brawl breaks out? You know that no Dwarf is gonna clonk you if you're also a Dwarf, and there's a dang good chance that you'll just have somebody take yoru back and you'll flow right into protecting one another. Dwarf goes in for a bank loan and gets a Dwarf loan officer. There'll be some talking for the cameras,  they both know it's getting approved and at generous rates. Dwarf outside the store hungry? Dwar owner quietly has their kid run out there with a meal... he knows the guy'll be good for it down the road.

You just don't get a lot of teh infighting that the others do. (In general. There are, of course, exceptions, because in Shadowrun, there's always room for jerks.)

Run Faster describes dwarves (sub-)culture like this.

Positive Quality "The DAN", Requirement Dwarf, Cost 5 Karma.  Character is hooked up to The DAN or the Dwarven Assistance Network.  At any time the character may ask to substitute The DAN as a connection 3, Loyalty 5 connection for most tests involving contacts.  This represents a loose network of Dwarf helping Dwarf.  Requests for Forbidden equipment, and Fencing "found" gear are generally not allowed as are other outright illegal requests.  The DAN isn't for metahuman trafficking and organ legging, it is typical Dwarf helping other Dwarfs.  At chargen no non-Dwarf can take The DAN, but during play if a character does a favor for a member of The DAN then they may add The DAN as a connection 3, Loyalty 1 Contact as per normal contact rules.


... or something like that.  Could be set up as a Group Contact or whatever too.  I'd love to see a slew of Metahuman specific qualities and contacts sometime.
.

Run Faster has something like this. Dwarves are the one race that get an actual gameplay benefit from the meta type-culture chapters. when living in mainstream dwarves culture they get +2 social limit with dwarven connections (also for availability) but only for legal stuff, as pariahs/outsiders they get -1 or +3 with other outsiders.

[Magnaric]

Not that I can add much to the discussion at this point, but I'll chuck in my 2¥ worth. First off, I'm a bit of a Dwarf enthusiast in games. They're actually my favourite fantasy race, to the point that my fiance Is convinced I'm part of the species(I'm a hairy Canuck, so possible). So if anything in here is slightly inaccurate, it's because I'm a bit biased by own admittance.

Looking at the stats in Shadowrun, dwarves are short, but bulky. I've always pictured them as being proportionally wider and much more dense than humans, and their higher min/max in strength and body support this. So while they're not automatically looking like weightlifters, I figure on average dwarf men and women do look a bit more muscular/thick/rugged. Think short hairy rugby players.

As for dwarf personality and society, Shadowrun is different than most fantasy/sci-fi ganes,  but it is still a world where stereotypes exist. Not all movers of a metaspecies are part of said stereotype, but they are aware of them. So while many dwarves aren't all brusk, reserved, mechanical tinkerers, I'm sure more than a few don't mind going along with the public perception that they are.

Also, I'm currently playing a Dwarf melee tank adept in a 5E game, and I've got to say, they make damn survivable little balls of death. And the hacker player in my 4E game is a dwarf, so they do get played. 

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Indeed, outside of a single Elf, every Sammy I've ever had in a game was human.

You'd think more Orks would have signed up, but, never in my home games.

Weird.  In my games, the guns/melee weapons combat folk get a relatively equal split between humans, elves, and orks; having that boost to the very-vital Agility tends to make for good killer elves, and the old 'if there is no reason why the character should definitely not be an ork, they should be an ork' still kind of applies.  If the question is pure unarmed, of course, the trolls get brought out ...

[Tarislar]

The way metatypes work in Shadowrun is that if you have mixed parentage, you end up as one of your parents or as one of the other options; no hybrids.  Orks and trolls have been known to have fully Human kids (and some Goblinize later in life, but that's a different tale). 

I think that is close but not quite right.

Pretty sure a meta can have offspring of your race or base human.  While humans can breed Human & any other single type.

But what you can't do for instance is have 2 different Meta's mate & have a 3rd Meta.

So a Troll + Ork parents can breed Troll, Ork, or Human, or Human that later Goblinizes.  BUT,  They can't make a Dwarf or Elf, Ever.

Essentially you can't have multiple dormant metatype genes.

[Tarislar]

You know, outside of that one archetype in the SR1 Street Samurai Catalouge, I can't say that I have ever heard of a Dwarf Street Sam. Is this a thing that people actually play and am I just blind?

I think Jim has posted that his 1st Character was a 2E Dwarf Sam that had Twin-Spurs & said "Bubb" a lot.


The only Dwarf in my 1st Group was a Rigger, technically, but the twin SMGs & Spur he carried made him quite capable outside of his ride.

[jim1701]

You know, outside of that one archetype in the SR1 Street Samurai Catalouge, I can't say that I have ever heard of a Dwarf Street Sam. Is this a thing that people actually play and am I just blind?

I think Jim has posted that his 1st Character was a 2E Dwarf Sam that had Twin-Spurs & said "Bubb"  a lot.

Ayep.  Don't forget the Panther Cannon   

[Blue Rose]

The way metatypes work in Shadowrun is that if you have mixed parentage, you end up as one of your parents or as one of the other options; no hybrids.  Orks and trolls have been known to have fully Human kids (and some Goblinize later in life, but that's a different tale). 

I think that is close but not quite right.

Pretty sure a meta can have offspring of your race or base human.  While humans can breed Human & any other single type.

But what you can't do for instance is have 2 different Meta's mate & have a 3rd Meta.

So a Troll + Ork parents can breed Troll, Ork, or Human, or Human that later Goblinizes.  BUT,  They can't make a Dwarf or Elf, Ever.

Essentially you can't have multiple dormant metatype genes.

Actually, any can breed with any and have any.

Two orcs can have a bouncing baby elf.  It's just very rare.

Two orcs will probably have an orc.  An orc and an elf will probably have an orc or elf.  Just like two white parents can have a black baby, due to expression of recessive genetic traits in both parents.  It's just rare.

[MijRai]

As Rose said. 

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Well, as Rose and MijRai both said.  MijRai gave the canonical baseline probabilities quite cleanly.

[Rosa]

In Earthdawn, the Orks, Trolls, Dwarfs, Elves and Humans are no longer able to interbreed and produce offspring eventhough they have stories that states, that all 5 races share a common ancestry, so it is theorized that the rising mana levels increases the differences between the races.

Well from Shadowrun we know that the common genetic source is the baseline Homo Sapiens, so it will be interesting to see if this is something that we will see the beginning of at some point, unless we already have. I seem to recall having read somewhere that it is becomming rarer and rarer for metahumans to give birth to human children, though i don't recall where i read it though.