[benedictmercury]

I've seen some mention here and there of the big Troll questions, with answers falling all along the spectrum.  Thought I'd consolidate the argument here and try to pin it down.  I trust you regular types to shut me down right quick if I've overlooked a dedicated thread.

I've been prepping some troll NPCs in my game and I've discovered that 1) it's perfectly doable to make competitive troll builds in most categories besides 'tank' as long as your concept embraces the minimum troll burliness; but 2)  I can't get comfortable with their intelligence limits.

On the first point: 

I built three mages: Troll A/Magic B, and two Human D's, one Magic A/Att B, the other Att A/Magic B.  I then aimed at parallel stats for them all (including giving the human mages uncommonly high Body and/or Strength).  I assumed max magical Skills wherever possible and spent the Skill Group points on Stealth.  I then spent Karma to raise each to match the others' superior stats.  The results, with concessions for Troll Mental attribute ceilings, were that to get all three characters to look the same cost almost exactly the same Karma:  103 for the Troll, 96 for Human Mage B, 100 for Human Mage A.  They all resulted with

B 6 R 1 A 1 S 5 C 5 (4 for Troll) I 5 L 4 W 6 Mag 6 Edge 5;   10 Spells

Casting, Counterspelling, Ritual Casting, Conjuring, Banishing and Assensing all at 6; Enchanting and Stealth Group at 2

Now of course if you're making a human mage you won't be spending your first year of sessions elevating Body to Olympic Boxer levels, and you probably won't force your Troll Mage to study Ritual Spellcasting out the a$$.  This is just to prove that the Troll Mage is not starting out in a major developmental or chargen-resource hole...

Point 2:

...IF we suspend the restriction of only one Racial Attribute max at chargen.  And now we're into the racism v. Trolls.

They don't just have lower mental ceilings, they're FORCED to start even below those ceilings.  You can't get a Troll out of the gate that is any better than average human intelligence.  Best you can do for mage all-roundedness is something like C 3 I 4 L 4 W 6, which any mage will tell you ain't really gonna do it. 

Bending your build to include some physical chops at the expense of mastering every single last magical skill is a fair tradeoff to ask a Troll Mage player to make.  FORCING them to start with superhuman strength and body (which is where those can't-be-mental-yet starting ATT points will likely go) but only mediocre mental stats--the ones they'll live and die by as a mage--seems too much.

Which brings me to the fact that, though I'm no political correctness junkie, I can't get down with trolls and orks being dumber.  If they were totally different races, sure; chimps and orangutans have different mental ceilings.  But these creatures start, or at least started, as human.  Becoming *meta*human means that you get bigger, but dumber?  This isn't the Middle Ages.  The Enlightenment happened, which is to say everybody that doesn't utterly suck figured out that reason is the ultimate resource, the ultimate weapon.  Declaring that metahuman races have lesser access to reason is declaring that they're subhuman.  They're second-class citizens.  DNA has declared class stratification is a natural, even good, outcome.

WHY IS ANYBODY OKAY WITH THAT

Lower Charisma I can see with ease; that's a subjective attribute depending on standards of beauty, social elegance, etc.  Maaayyybe even Willpower, due to social trauma, or relationship to pain in the body, sumpn.  But intellect?

[Crunch]

There's a whole body of Literature scholarship on these types of issues in texts from Lord of the Rings on up, and it's an issue that's unlikely to be solved here.

[ZeConster]

Unlike in some systems, though, there's only a lower maximum, not a flat penalty that applies to everyone of that metatype. So while a Troll can have at most Improved Charisma and Superior Intuition, Logic and Agility, they don't need to spend 5 points on Charisma in order to have it at their racial max of 4, just 3.

[benedictmercury]

What fantasy literature at large does is its business.  What a mechanic in a game we play does is very much ours.  I'm not freaking out about this, nor am I accusing SR's developers of racism.  I'm not out to root out racists and prove myself a hero of sensitivity.  I just don't know that the brains mechanic is cool.

In other games, trolls are other organisms.  There's a Genus out for the brains problem.  But SR trolls are PEOPLE, dudes.

If my initial analysis about reason=equality is correct--and maybe it isn't--then the troll thing is ill.

[Shinobi Killfist]

But they aren't people.  I'm not going for my usual humanis don't shoot until you see the points of their ears gag either.  They have massive physiological differences between standard humans or elves, dwarves etc.  Think of it like dog breeds, some dog breeds are considered smarter than others but they are all dogs.  Trolls are part of humanity but they aren't human just like a poodle isn't a greyhound but they are both dogs. 

[ZeConster]

In other games, trolls are other organisms.  There's a Genus out for the brains problem.  But SR trolls are PEOPLE, dudes.

Actually, all five metatypes are "homo sapiens X", which means you basically have 5 subspecies of the homo sapiens species - and since aside from our homo sapiens sapiens, the only other non-Shadowrun subspecies is homo sapiens idaltu from about 160,000 years ago, there's a lot of room for evolutionary differences in there.

[Mirikon]

In universe, they actually talk about some of the physiological reasons for this, due to changes in the bone structure of the skull, etc. Boils down to the fact that part of the down side of being big and strong and able to take a lot of punishment means that you don't have the potential to be as smart as others. It is a game balance thing, amongst other reasons.

[farothel]

Well, those points in physicals can still be useful.  You can take more drain before you go down (physical drain that is of course), and you will have a higher defence value, which can be useful in combat.  Also a human mage with low physical stats has his spells and not much else, while a Troll has other options if he doesn't want to be known as a mage (punching someone straight into the face for instance, something that wouldn't make a big impression if a S2 human mage would do it).  He can also take more punishment if someone decides that 'geek the mage first' is a valuable strategy.

[DeathStrobe]

But trolls are second class citizens. That's why you find so many trolls and orks at the bottom of society. Do you really think these people have great access to education? Hell, it's worse for Orks since they die young. I mean, do you really want to spend half of your life in school or spend your life living it? Society wasn't made for trolls or orks, but they got dealt a hand and no one is willing to rework "civilized" society for them, so they go off and turn to their life of crime.

I don't know...makes sense to me.

[Serafina]

I honestly don't see the issue with portraying a vastly different creature than a modern-day human as less intelligent than a modern-day human.
Trolls (and Orks to a lesser degree) ARE vastly different from humans. They even get entire new organs such as dermal plating and horns, structures that don't exist in human physiology.  A different brain development is hardly a stretch, especially since it can be caused in modern-day humans by a vast array of genetic conditions.

Metahumans being "Homo Sapiens X" is mostly a red herring - by modern biology, such a vastly different set of traits as acquired by dwarves, orks and trolls should require sufficient genetic changes to count as an entirely different. But even if we disregard that, that notation points to differences potentially as big as between any subspecies Homo Sapiens - Homo Sapiens Sapiens (modern human) was different from Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis. Maybe even as big as between different species in the genus Homo - since species vs. subspecies is mostly determined by genetic divergence over time.

Oh, and i don't even see Trolls&Orks being portrayed as generally dumb in Shadowrun fiction. They're usually about as smart as your average human, and if they are tuggish or such its a result of poverty or similar circumstances.



Or, in other words "oh, but it's unfair to have the rules state that someone with "Drawback: Down Syndrome*" get's such a penalty to their mental stats". Face it, some people are screwed over by their biology in certain aspects - real-life ethnicity doesn't do that, but being an Ork or Troll in Shadowrun does that to a certain extent.

*Taken because it's most widely known, other examples can be inserted here.

[benedictmercury]

Agreed on physical stats. I think the troll Mage is cool as hell. A troll occult detective? Fook yes.

I get the game balance origin of the dumbness, but it doesn't erase the institutionalized racism problem.  And human teens goblinising into a future of being stupid is too horrific even for a global trauma. In a different setting I could accept race distinctions, but in a modern world where reason, technology and economics reign--a world into which the new 'races' emerged from root human stock--I can't see how a strong, dumb offshoot of humanity is that different from Mandingo field labour that can work twice as long in the sun but can't read so good. 'Bone density' sounds like phrenology to me, besides which it only really works if you consider trolls to be adulterated humans; if they're a separate race entirely, skull density shouldn't limit their mammal brains any more than it does elephants'.

Being homo sapiens humongongus Means they're a subspecies, indeed like Dog breeds--which, for all that dog owners like myself might attest to the contrary, are not scientifically confirmed to have different intelligences. Chihuahuas have been successfully taught German shepherd games to a competitive level.

[Crunch]

Remember though that SR doesn't really HAVE an Intelligence stat. I always think of Logic and Intuition as being aptitiudes for specific skills/tasks and assume the tests are racially biased.

[CanRay]

"Mungo nahtz broke.  Mungo doz da brokez on odderz."

[GiraffeShaman]

And human teens goblinising into a future of being stupid is too horrific even for a global trauma. In a different setting I could accept race distinctions, but in a modern world where reason, technology and economics reign--a world into which the new 'races' emerged from root human stock--I can't see how a strong, dumb offshoot of humanity is that different from Mandingo field labour that can work twice as long in the sun but can't read so good.

I strongly suggest checking out the Shadowrun novel "Changeling." It's actually about a teenager who goblinizes into a Troll at age15 in the 2050's and what results from that. A great read, one of my all time favorites.

Reason doesn't reign in the SR world. It's a dystopia and inequality is one of the key pillars of the setting. The return of Magic to the worlds is unfair in all sorts of ways. It also rewards random people with Awakened abilities. It turns some people into cannibals and monsters. The economic system is also grossly unfair, and purposely so.

[Ghoulfodder]

Doesn't some of the history section actually say that no one has ever proved Orks and Trolls have inferior intellects?

However, given prejudice and perception, would it not be fair to say that Trolls and Orks will have to deal with poorer education and lower expectations of learning... giving them a disadvantage compared to those technical geniuses Dwarfs, the bright Elves and all the normal folk.