Half Elf Race

[Larrath]

The problem is people choosing the race half-elf for the specific purposes of gaining their racial advantages, without any intention of roleplaying the character as a half-elf.

Do these people really exist?  I mean, we commonly hear complaints about them on the GDB, but are they actually out there?

I daresay that most half-elves I've seen were, as far as I as a player can tell, not being played correctly.  The ones that were played right were a joy to watch, on the other hand.

First, the half-elf racial advantages are not really that impressive.  Ride is nice, but any char can learn to ride before too long.  Decent Allundean is a more significant advantage, but who wants to speak that elvish trash anyway?  If you let it slip that you know it, people will also suspect you.  Also, half-elf stats are unimpressive.  If you want to be nimble and smart, elves do it better.  If you want to be strong and tough, humans are better.  Half-elves split the difference and don't really stand out at anything.  Plus, stats don't really matter much anyway.

First of all, speaking an extra language is very useful, especially one as common as Allundean.  This isn't Tatlum or Nrizkt that a character will probably never get to use or constantly have to hide the knowledge.
Second, stats do matter.  Stats are the reason why muls require higher karma than any elementalist guild, and elementalists can get so lethal that it's sickening.
Stats aren't everything in the game by a longshot, but they do make a difference.

Second, even if the player in question doesn't want to RP a half-elf, other players are (hopefully) going to thrust a very significant part of half-elf RP upon them, the discrimination.  The coded advantages of being a half-elf don't come anywhere near the social advantages of being a human.  Not by a looooooonng shot.

If the player doesn't want to roleplay a half-elf, has 'man' in their sdesc and no hint of their race in their mdesc and act precisely the way humans do, who exactly is going to treat them like a half-elf?  There aren't that many people who will decide they notice a character is not a human simply because assess -v said so.  Furthermore, those who will notice will often be ignored or dismissed by the players who won't notice it.
Humans don't have social advantages.  They lack social disadvantages, and so does a completely hidden, human-like half-elf.

[Xygax]

Stats are not the reason muls require higher karma than any other elementalist guild.  But even if they weren't, muls statistically diverge so drastically from humans and dwarves that comparing them to half-elves in terms of stat-advantage over their parent races is utterly ridiculous.  (And lethality isn't the only criteria by which we rank karma classes and races -- half-giant warriors are probably the most downright lethal race/class combo on day one of any, in my experience.)

-- X

[joyofdiscord]

Yeah, all that's fair enough.  I did acknowledge that Allundean was useful.  Then I had to go back and read the original post to remind myself what is the actual purpose of this thread.     And it seems the IMMs agree with you that there is some suspicion regarding players' motives in choosing the race.

As far as what to do about it, it's quite the hairy question.  My first thought would be to require some sort of clues in the mdesc or the app will be rejected.  Of course, that's a highly subjective measure.  Is being tall and skinny a good enough clue?

Another measure might be to forbid players from explicitly identifying the character as human or elf in the mdesc, but that just makes "apparently human" a half-elf giveaway.  But whatcha gonna do?  Having to have "half-elf" in the sdesc is also a big giveaway, and this would be a nice compromise, in my mind.  It does mean a lot more rejected or rewritten applications over something comparatively minor, and consequently, more IMM time invested in overseeing this sort of thing.

Half-elves to Karma 1?  "Make it Karma!" is a common cry that I've heard  in regards most of the available mundane races and guilds.  With half-elves, it might not be a terrible idea just to trim the numbers down a bit, and also provide a halfway decent assurance of a halfway decent roleplayer behind them.

Also, no reason that the half-elf option can't be taken away from someone that misuses it, although that's a real fuzzy area.  How much half-elf roleplay is sufficient?  Just how messed up do they have to be anyway?

[Sokotra]

This topic kinda struck a nerve with me... having played half-elves off and on for the years that I've been playing, I've never felt that I've had any sort of advantage as being a half-elf.  I'm not saying that the allundean isn't useful, or the better understanding of wildlife etc... but to me the differences were just that - differences, not advantages.  In fact, I've always felt that my half-elves were underdogs in comparison to humans... I'm not sure why, maybe the RP of being shunned and trying to find acceptance and such.  Another thing that irritates me about being half-elf is the 'assess -v' command, of which I will say no more.  Again, I feel like being a half-elf, whether passing as human or not, is a disadvantage.  The advantages that may occur should be there, perhaps more so, because they are only useful in certain situations and not any sort of unbalancing factor in my opinion.  

My first reaction when seeing this topic come up was thinking that some sort of unnecessary change was going to take place.  For some reason I always get the feeling that the staff is paranoid about people trying to 'abuse' the game or get away with something.  Maybe the paranoia is justified in certain cases, but I feel like there are alot of unnecessary reactions that occur from the staff because of this paranoia.  Again, this is just my perception, I could be wrong... as I don't even have much time to play the game in depth... so don't get offended.

[Ghost]

I am actually with Sokotra here.  I do -believe- half-elves have no codewise advantage at all.  And yes I am saying Allundean is not as much of a good idea to pick up half-elf, nor ride or the stat bonus.  I infact would choose human over half-elf if stats were my main consiederation.  And being a half-elf always bites you back.  You do good work and you get less than what you deserve, or what you think you deserve (Which is a challenge and the good part of being a half-elf.  Challenge!)

The beauty of being a half-elf goes with the fact, that you are a shitblood to the elves, and half-neck to the humans.  Playing a half-elf is a lot of fun RPwise.  NOT codewise.

[Forty Winks]

I think what the staff is worried about is not half-elven roleplay in and of itself, they are more concerned with people acting like humans or elves and not having to be associated as a half-elf because of various reasons. And for that, all I have to say is that there will always be people who try to take advantages of the code, no matter how much information and guidelines are set out. Like twinks (which will unfortunately always exist) enforcement of the policies are needed. How strictly it is enforced depends on how much effort that is put into such actions. Although it isn't a very great solution, I feel the best way to ever handle such a case in an effective manner is to get everone, including willing players, on the watchout.

Maybe there's other alternatives to solve this dilema, but IMO it can't be solved completely without a strict application process, (as well as knowledge of guidelines, which I think there are already plenty of).

[SewerRat_inTheOpen]

Are half-elves really easily distinguisable as half-elves if they don't have any accessories to help them hide that fact? If they are, then it's reasonable to let them mention their half-bred features clearly in either their short description or description or both. If mutations may fluctate towards either end of the spectrum [human or elf], and it is not that easily recognisable [not to mention the mutations that normal people have], then maybe not. I support the right to see them as what they are though, if they have subtle differences enough to make us see different.

The immortalss have the right to strip us of the right of the race if they are misplaying the role purposely, maybe this will help deter people who wish to play half-elves for their advantages without roleplaying as them.

If they are clearly filthy half-breds, tensions and conflicts tend to arise with the right pcs about them. IF they are not, their mannerisms and features once closely inspected may again probably show them to be half-elves and conflict will come along. [with the right kind of pc again] What I mean is, conflict needs to be started by players who know who they are dealing with.

Coded advantages : Not much since he has coded disadvantages of being weaker and much of a loner where society doesn't accepts him.

I find it much harder to play an half-elf. But... despite the fact that most of the populace probably despise half-elves, there are quite a lot of people willing to accept them and talk to them. -I remember this bynner blond who was accepted by most if not all I saw her interact with, but it's just what I saw, may be different with what she encountered-

Hmm...why is it termed as a half-elf and not a half-human? Which one is more superior then? Half-elf seemed to be coined because of d&d, where elves are a superior race, can't be sure.