The Legend Sandy Petersen speaking Truth to Power on twiX:

https://x.com/SandyofCthulhu/status/1886518107407310855

Quote"In a pick up game of Runequest c. 1985*, a woman played a dwarf (the race). I made some mention that her PC was short and she took umbrage. "That's racist! My dwarf is tall and willowy!"

Puzzled I asked why she played a dwarf if she wanted to be like that. She (and her husband) doubled down, agreeing it was racism to assume stereotypes about a non-human.

I argued briefly, then went on with the game but seriously? THERE IS NO REASON TO PLAY A NONHUMAN EXCEPT TO USE STEREOTYPES.

If you want a non-stereotypical PC, be human. It's what we're for."

He's right.

* Yet another example of early infiltration into the hobby. With 20/20 hindsight, Peterson should have kicked them out of the game and told them to find a different hobby.

You need roughly 19 instances of the type before going against type has any punch.  After someone has played the typical elf, dwarf, or whatever 19 times in my campaign, I'm happy for them to break out a little.

Only sort of kidding.  It doesn't need to be that many, because other people are playing the races too, not to mention NPCs.  Still, a dwarf that is noticeably, slightly taller or shorter than average is great. Trying to change it into something else is just another way to try to wreck the setting, and shouldn't be tolerated any more than trying to bring in gunpowder where it doesn't exist.

Their Dwarf probably had rainbow colored hair, too.

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2025, 05:03:13 PMThe Legend Sandy Petersen speaking Truth to Power on twiX:

https://x.com/SandyofCthulhu/status/1886518107407310855

Quote"In a pick up game of Runequest c. 1985*, a woman played a dwarf (the race). I made some mention that her PC was short and she took umbrage. "That's racist! My dwarf is tall and willowy!"

Puzzled I asked why she played a dwarf if she wanted to be like that. She (and her husband) doubled down, agreeing it was racism to assume stereotypes about a non-human.

I argued briefly, then went on with the game but seriously? THERE IS NO REASON TO PLAY A NONHUMAN EXCEPT TO USE STEREOTYPES.

If you want a non-stereotypical PC, be human. It's what we're for."

He's right.

I suspect the woman in the example was off-base, though I'd want to hear her side of the story. I disagree about the general principle, though. I'm more often annoyed by non-human PCs is that the players just play them as stereotypes instead of as part of a broad species and society that is different than humans.

For example, in my last Middle Earth game, I had ten pregen PCs who were all dwarves. I think they all represented parts of Tolkien's dwarven traditions, but they were also all different from each other. Part of what I wanted to dispel is how all dwarves are centered on the single character of Gimli - i.e. beer-drinking, axe-wielding miners with a Scottish accent. The dwarf PCs come from many different rungs of society - an idealistic scholar, a two-fisted brawler, a trouble-making young princess, a charismatic queen, etc.

One of my favorite PCs ever was from a GURPS Fantasy game in grad school, where there was a new Roman Empire after a weird time-looping magic apocalypse that included elves and dwarves. I played a Romanized elf who was an enthusiastic convert to Roman culture, who despised the tree-hugging ways of his fellow elves as backwards hicks. His name was Antonius Publius Eldarus, and he frequently cited Roman philosophy in contrast to barbarians like the Gauls, Celts, and elves.

In Runequest they have a size stat and Dwarves roll 2d6 for their size. Humans have 3d6 for size. It's in the rules. Sandy should have said so, it's not some arbitrary choice in RuneQuest.

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2025, 05:31:49 PMor example, in my last Middle Earth game, I had ten pregen PCs who were all dwarves. I think they all represented parts of Tolkien's dwarven traditions, but they were also all different from each other. Part of what I wanted to dispel is how all dwarves are centered on the single character of Gimli - i.e. beer-drinking, axe-wielding miners with a Scottish accent. The dwarf PCs come from many different rungs of society - an idealistic scholar, a two-fisted brawler, a trouble-making young princess, a charismatic queen, etc.

What you're talking about there is not playing against type, it's finding the breadth of possibilities within type. I could argue with the particular examples you use, but the basic fact is that because Tolkien was a good writer, there is enough wiggle room in his Dwarves to have a variety of characters without making something that isn't a Dwarf. Any well-realized fantasy world is going to allow for that.

That's a different thing than just ignoring what a Dwarf is in Middle Earth.

Quote from: Ruprecht on February 03, 2025, 05:57:45 PMIn Runequest they have a size stat and Dwarves roll 2d6 for their size. Humans have 3d6 for size. It's in the rules. Sandy should have said so, it's not some arbitrary choice in RuneQuest.

Technically the SIZ stat is mass, though, not height. A tall willowy creature can have the same SIZ stat as a bulky short one.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 03, 2025, 06:01:55 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2025, 05:31:49 PMor example, in my last Middle Earth game, I had ten pregen PCs who were all dwarves. I think they all represented parts of Tolkien's dwarven traditions, but they were also all different from each other. Part of what I wanted to dispel is how all dwarves are centered on the single character of Gimli - i.e. beer-drinking, axe-wielding miners with a Scottish accent. The dwarf PCs come from many different rungs of society - an idealistic scholar, a two-fisted brawler, a trouble-making young princess, a charismatic queen, etc.

What you're talking about there is not playing against type, it's finding the breadth of possibilities within type. I could argue with the particular examples you use, but the basic fact is that because Tolkien was a good writer, there is enough wiggle room in his Dwarves to have a variety of characters without making something that isn't a Dwarf. Any well-realized fantasy world is going to allow for that.

That's a different thing than just ignoring what a Dwarf is in Middle Earth.

The issue is about stereotypes, though. I'm saying that these two things are different:

1) What a dwarf is in Middle Earth

2) Stereotypes about dwarves in Middle Earth

In general, I would say that stereotypes about a thing are not the same as the thing itself.

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2025, 06:30:27 PMTechnically the SIZ stat is mass, though, not height. A tall willowy creature can have the same SIZ stat as a bulky short one.

RQ2 (and RQ Classic) have height and weight. The story is from 1985, a year after RQ3 shipped so it might be based on Mass but certainly Sandy would have known how RQ2 handled it. Anyway here is the table from RQ2.

Dwarves are 2d6 for SIZ.

It's almost uncanny...

Quote from: Ruprecht on February 03, 2025, 06:51:17 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2025, 06:30:27 PMTechnically the SIZ stat is mass, though, not height. A tall willowy creature can have the same SIZ stat as a bulky short one.

RQ2 (and RQ Classic) have height and weight. The story is from 1985, a year after RQ3 shipped so it might be based on Mass but certainly Sandy would have known how RQ2 handled it. Anyway here is the table from RQ2.

Dwarves are 2d6 for SIZ.

In other words, a tall and willowy dwarf might be 4'10" (150 cm) and 110 lb. (50kg)... basically the upper end of size 9 height and middle of size 9 weight.

Tall and slight for a dwarf, but still shorter than an average female human and about the same weight as a thin female human a few inches taller.

At that point, what are the meaningful differences between races? Superficial physical traits?

Quote from: Ruprecht on February 03, 2025, 06:51:17 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2025, 06:30:27 PMTechnically the SIZ stat is mass, though, not height. A tall willowy creature can have the same SIZ stat as a bulky short one.

RQ2 (and RQ Classic) have height and weight. The story is from 1985, a year after RQ3 shipped so it might be based on Mass but certainly Sandy would have known how RQ2 handled it. Anyway here is the table from RQ2.

Dwarves are 2d6 for SIZ.

Thanks for the added information. I don't have RQ2. As you note, in 1985, the current edition was 3rd edition - and in those rules, SIZ is mass as I said.

In the original example, the woman says "That's racist", which I think a lot of people are reacting to - but that isn't the general point being made. I don't know the woman in the example, and it's quite possible she was just stupid.

But it looks possible that someone could have played RQ2 in 1985 and rolled up a dwarf character who was of above-average height for a human (like SIZ 12) -- so the GM would have been wrong to assume that the dwarf PC was short.

In RQ3, the size table in the main book is supplemented by the creature definitions. Since RQ3 was trying to get away from the automatic Glorantha setting, also supporting a "fantasy Earth" setting, the main books are just about humans. 

It's true that the same Size rules are used throughout, part of the reason for switching to mass.  However, this is what the start of the dwarf entry has to say on page 16 of the Creature Book:  "Their bodies and heads are nearly as large as those of humans, but their limbs are short, powerfully-muscled, and often twisted." Later, it goes on to note that male and human dwarfs do not differ in size or strength, but "Dwarf women are even more rarely seen than the men."

In the Players Book, page 44, the RQ size equivalency table has size 9 at 121-129 lbs, then size 12 at 156-168 lbs.

Hmm, the average human gets around 50% of their height from their legs and feet. Furthermore, most people have a "wingspan" (arms stretched out, finger-tip to finger-tip) within an inch or two of their height.  Muscle is a large portion of additional weight, when present.  So I want to see a "tall, willowy" creature that has a male human sized head and torso, short, twisted, heavily muscled limbs, and weights 169 lbs or less.

And just to stop the likely rebuttal, when I was 18 (in the year in question, as it happens), I was 5' 8.5" which was then average height of an American male. I have rather short, muscled legs for my height, but an above average wingspan, with underdeveloped shoulders and little upper arm strength, making me as close a willowy dwarf as a human being can normally get. I weighed 145 lbs. In the next two years, my shoulders grew 4 coat sizes, still no fat, and gained 20 lbs.  At no time would anyone have called me "heavily muscled", let alone "willowy".  There's only so much height can move with a given weight.

Probably the same fruitcakes from BGG who proclaimed that "Dwarves liking beer is racist." Wish I were joking.

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2025, 05:31:49 PMPart of what I wanted to dispel is how all dwarves are centered on the single character of Gimli - i.e. beer-drinking, axe-wielding miners with a Scottish accent.

Specifically, the Peter Jackson adaptation, which resembled a World of Warcraft dwarf way more than any Tolkien dwarf.