Big Hero Six [Half Giants]

[Spoon]

I agree with X-D here. Half elves are the ones who get messed up by rejection. I imagine trying to reject a half giant would be very difficult. Picture someone shouting at their dog to go away, who curls his ears back and ducks away at the noise, only to follow on with the same doting grin as soon as the master's back is turned. However these dogs are about as loyal as cats; the best way to get rid of a half giant would be to wait for anything else to grab their attention. I feel if any part of the half giant persona is underplayed, it's their complete lack of loyalty. Any loyalty 'trained' into a half giant should be an illusion. They are the complete opposite of elves in this respect, whom are extremely picky and loyal thereafter.

P.s The dog example here is where the dog simply does not comprehend the rejection. I am not saying half giants are completely like dogs. I think X-D hits the nail on the head, half giants don't want to be like other people, they just inevitably mimic because they are too stupid to do anything else.

[DANCE COMMANDER]

Oh, wow.

[CodeMaster]

There's lots of room to argue semantics but I think overall BleakOne and X-D are agreeing in spirit, if not in phrasing.

I think what it boils down to is that half-giants are wired to (or have an innate but subconscious "desire" to) follow to whoever has a social advantage over them.  

People are like this too; it's why propaganda works (much as each of us likes to believe it wouldn't work on himself).  Half-giants are just much, much more susceptible to it, and have high flexibility [in this regard].

Spoon's contrast with elves is apt.

[edits]

[nauta]

I agree with X-D here. Half elves are the ones who get messed up by rejection. I imagine trying to reject a half giant would be very difficult. Picture someone shouting at their dog to go away, who curls his ears back and ducks away at the noise, only to follow on with the same doting grin as soon as the master's back is turned. However these dogs are about as loyal as cats; the best way to get rid of a half giant would be to wait for anything else to grab their attention. I feel if any part of the half giant persona is underplayed, it's their complete lack of loyalty. Any loyalty 'trained' into a half giant should be an illusion. They are the complete opposite of elves in this respect, whom are extremely picky and loyal thereafter.

P.s The dog example here is where the dog simply does not comprehend the rejection. I am not saying half giants are completely like dogs. I think X-D hits the nail on the head, half giants don't want to be like other people, they just inevitably mimic because they are too stupid to do anything else.

Oh!  Someone good with those gif meme things should have a picture of a cowboy herding halfgiants like cats.

[X-D]

Snicker, They should, I had a HG in the Byn once when there was 3 other HGs...the sarge would have fits as Hgs just wander off here and there....half the time one would then each of the others would wonder what the first one found interesting and follow along.

Always wondered if the player of the sarge was having fits like his PC or if he was laughing along with us.

Best part is when the sarge tried to yell at us and all the HGs decided it must be talk really loud time.

[MeTekillot]

I think half-giant soldiers should occasionally release you on the way to dragging you to the jail because they get bored.

[Fujikoma]

Snicker, They should, I had a HG in the Byn once when there was 3 other HGs...the sarge would have fits as Hgs just wander off here and there....half the time one would then each of the others would wonder what the first one found interesting and follow along.

Always wondered if the player of the sarge was having fits like his PC or if he was laughing along with us.

Best part is when the sarge tried to yell at us and all the HGs decided it must be talk really loud time.

OMG, LMAO, that sounds HILLARIOUS! I know I only saw one instance of "Too many HGs", when the Sarge had them guiding the wagon because they're loud, but they all just kept shouting "West!", the next would follow suit, and soon, the Sergeant was like, um, no, ok, you big guys did a great job, you walk with the group ahead of the wagon, and someone else gets to try and do as good a job as you do on the shouting.

They continued to shout "west" on contracts at random. Another funny thing was saluting, wow, it's like, they keep copying one another until the Sergeant has a shit fit.

[Culinary Critic]

One of my half-giants (my favourite) was fairly smart for the race but went into wild fits of rage over pretty small issues.  Made to feel dumb (even unintentionally), and suddenly furious because she didn't quite understand what was going on and that confusion sparked spontaneous anger.  Perhaps because she suddenly didn't feel like she fit in.  It was an emotional immaturity issue rather than a low intelligence issue or a not-fitting-in issue. 

Everything going smooth and dandy, life is good.  Little hiccup and BLAM!  Temper tantrum with kicking, screaming, swearing, breaking things.  And I loved being forced to pay attention to just about everything going on around her and sort through them to see if anything would set her off.  That's fine...that too...good over there...What?  You just insulted her boots???  em grabs something big and heavy and smashes a wall with it

[Fujikoma]

Honestly, if you have a half-giant in your employee and you're not babysitting them at all times, you'd be lucky if your favorite statues weren't accidently toppled in a cleaning accident, or the wagon weren't taken on a joyride off the shield wall... twice.

EDIT: I actually played a HG as too dumb to follow the schedule because I knew if he -did- follow the schedule, shit was going to get broken on maintenance day.

[CodeMaster]

Honestly, if you have a half-giant in your employee and you're not babysitting them at all times, you'd be lucky if your favorite statues weren't accidently toppled in a cleaning accident, or the wagon weren't taken on a joyride off the shield wall... twice.

EDIT: I actually played a HG as too dumb to follow the schedule because I knew if he -did- follow the schedule, shit was going to get broken on maintenance day.

Check out the story "The Templar's Sons"
http://www.armageddon.org/original/author/Sanvean/type/Stories
(a fun story about failing to babysit the half-giants)

[Aruven]

The movie was great. But I think the dumb, sweet, confused half-giant is a trope that's too often used. Half-giants should make you fearful, not endear you too them.

Um... I keep seeing this.

I get that people play this game for years, and the role gets played out sometimes. It can be added.

I DON'T LIKE seeing 'smart' half-giants. And by smart I don't mean that they have no common sense. I mean smart. Half-giants aren't supposed to be smart in my opinion.

Inhuman strength and massive size have their drawbacks. And I still thoroughly enjoy a well-played half-giant.

[Clearsighted]

It's interesting that a half-giant can be a stablemaster with control over hundreds of mounts, controlling them and handling the tickets and payments of numerous strangers, a soldier (even up to sergeant rank in one instance), the bodyguard to a templar, or to guard a city gate and check passerbys for contraband (with shocking efficiency)...but some (who are great players) believe good RP demands they turn into a Benny Hill skit, falling into holes repeatedly and such, if given the tiniest responsibility, as a player.

I don't agree that good HG RP is them acting as imbecilic as possible. That makes as little sense as them being comic relief constantly. There should be misunderstandings, and a half-giant should be flippant about some things that are serious, and serious about some things that are flippant...but riding out on a patrol and riding back should be routine. If not, there wouldn't be a thousand patrolling half-giant guards in every city-state, and stationed at every gate. They'd be getting lost and dying of starvation in some alley or poking around the rinth.

It's a hard role to play, but there is a medium to be found between imbecile, sidekick, and a creature that both city-states make extensive use of in sensitive positions. A half-giant generally knows which side their bread is buttered on, or they wouldn't be worth having as soldiers. (Here's a steak, go attack your templar!)

Half-giants as expected by the majority of players in Arm are far away even from Arm's own documentation, and the various Dark Sun rpgs and novels.

The best rp advice for HGs is to just STFU. It's hard, because everyone wants you to be the center of attention or entertainment, but a HG should mostly be in a supporting role, outside the occasional amusement of misunderstandings or misapplied attention. A half-giant that's been a soldier, mercenary, raider or whatever where brutality and discipline was common, is likely to be more similar to The Mountain, than Chris Farley. But it's easy to get drawn into bad habits from other players and their often palpable expectations. Some people play HGs so incredibly, laughably stupid, that it's amazing to think the HG species can even manage to self-propagate or raise its young, and instead of flourishing (at least according to the Dark Sun source material), hasn't gone extinct like the dodo.

EDIT: Basically, HGs need a lot of reinforcement, and are vastly tilted to the nurture side of the nature vs nurture scale. The farther they get away from their 'rut', the more unpredictable or irrational they might become. If completely divorced from their support network, then they can mentally reset and be impressed upon something new (if done by someone they find interesting and charismatic enough). Like a half-giant farmer that gets captured by raiders, but then takes on the raider's ways. But if they have a reinforcing support network, and if your duties are common on a daily or weekly basis, then an HG should have no problem carrying them out.

A half-giant if asked to lead a patrol, is more likely to just do it the way he always does, with the others having to keep up. He's not going to change his tactics because someone is carrying a bow, and the usual guy is an axe and board man. He'll do what he knows best. But he won't magically get stupider and more incompetent. He just won't improvise well, if improvisation is called for. That's the MAIN reason that HGs shouldn't be leaders. If something TOTALLY NEW happens that requires initiative and wits to respond to on the fly, they are not equipped to succeed.

tl;dr - playing the HG as egregiously stupid when carrying out his job is as creatively lazy an RP shortcut as making them a complete fucking goofball. They're just not lateral or quick thinkers.

[Quell]

While I have no problem with how the various half-giants are played and think most that I've met are entirely within the scope of what a half-giant should be, I've never really been happy with the implied boundaries of that scope.

I remember a while back in one of these threads someone asked the honest question "Do Half Giants have their own personalities." As I recall, no one was really able to answer that question. I think a bigger question that I'd like answered, and that would make the half-giant psyche a lot more tolerable to me, is "Do half-giants have their own goals, separate from those around them?"

If the answer to that is "no", then it's going to make giants painfully dull for most people to play and will pretty well prohibit any genuinely notable giants from ever being played.

For this reason I think the answer should be: "Yes, but..." with everything after that being a description of how a giant with a specific goal of their own would pursue that through the half-giant mindset.

[Rhyden]

I really like some of the great long-lived HG's of the past few years. Seems they set a pretty good example for the current/future half-giants.

[Jihelu]

To the question of 'do they have goals'. I think "yes but" works pretty well.

It can be thought of in a way that I saw Beserk from (Beserk is best manga 2018 btw)

In Beserk I think it talked about how some people can be 'born' into a profession and have no control over it what so ever. The main character was born as a warrior. And as such, he never fucking stops fighting. Even when he wanted to die, he kept fighting. Same with a black smith later in the series. He just made shit. He didn't know why. He just did.

A Half-Giant, depending on his upbringing, could just do shit (Related to how they were raised) I think. That could be his goal.

Or maybe I'm over complicating shit and are just wrong (Which is a huge possibility) but I feel like it fits the whole 'half giants are reflections of the society around them' idea.

[CodeMaster]

I'd be scared to attempt a half-giant.

No matter whether he's smart or dumb, somebody will probably think he could be a bit dumber or a bit smarter.  "They should be like the Mountain!"  "No, they should be like Scooby Doo or the Professor from Futurama!"

And then there are those situations where you're obviously more knowledgeable about the game than someone and have to "help" them through the filter of a half-giant (telling a newbie to hold his weapons before riding out the gates, for instance).

(In any case, I think I like all the half-giants I've seen... but they're a karma class so there's that inherent bias)

[Clearsighted]

No matter whether he's smart or dumb, somebody will probably think he could be a bit dumber or a bit smarter.

That is the exact heart of the problem with playing half-giants.

[Shoka Windrunner]

I've always seen Half-Giants as being half child/half adult.

They have a curiousity about things and want to see and learn.  And in fact they are capable of learning anything really.  And things they learn well will eventually turn into things they are proud of, simply because people see them as complete buffoons.  Because of this they are often complimented on how well they did X.  This makes anyone feel good, and Half-giants, being no exception will realize, if I'm good at something, then people like it and like me.  That being said, I don't believe they are stupid.  Ignorant and slow to learn perhaps.  But not ignorant.

Half-giants can learn to be soldiers, follow orders, the nuances of wielding a sword, axe, mace, spear, shield.  The nuances of how to knock a sword from the hands of a "much smarter" little guy.  (I will say knocking someone over and kicking them might be easier due to their size than the nuances of the others)  They can be magickers...speaking funny words and doing amazing things.  They can be Rangers...know all the tracks of all the animals and sounds animals make, and what is tasty and what is poisonous and how to deal with the poison and...(I won't go on because Rangers can do a billion things)  They can learn to ride.  They have learned an entire language, could learn more.  Can craft and put things together into baskets and make rings and armor and weapons and rings and make clothes. 
OPINION BELOW:

I think Half-giants personally will often find that doing X well makes people think I'm 'special' or makes people say nice things to me.  So I will be good at X.  Wait, someone said I'm really good at Y and now they are nice to me about that, and want to pay me sid.  Sid gets me food.  What about Z?  Yeah they like Z too.  Okay, I think if I do good with something people like me!  I'll do good and learn this stuff.

Because seriously.  If all the Half-Giants in the world are part of the extended Three Stooges family, they would all be dead.  Or very carefully and kindly, with kid gloves, told to come follow the super-nice and happy Templar out of the city.  "Why are we walking so far?"  "Because the candy is this way."  "Oh.  Good."  And then left in the farthest corner of the known world as possible and very carefully herded back into their valley or whatever when they start to wander to much. 

TLDR:  Half-giants may be ignorant because they learn slowly.  But they can learn.  And they can learn a lot.  Maybe slower.  And maybe without much Outside The Box thinking.  But even that should happen.  Because sometimes, two plus kalan really does equal tembo.  (it doesn't always have to make sense)  Otherwise they would all live in a Half-giant asylum where we put all the dangerous creatures, or would never be capable of raising their young.



On a side note:  Raising young would make a half-giant really bored, and people seem to think half-giants wander from one shiny thing to the next, forgetting the previous shiny thing when they leave.  Lots of dead half-giant babies then.

[AdamBlue]

Half-giants can be, and should be portrayed like someone who is childishly ignorant of the world around them. By this, I mean that half-giants should listen to the people they trust and accept what they say with little to no resistance or questioning, while they will demandedly question things that annoy or frustrate them. Half giants are listed as 'curious' and 'kind,' and perhaps this is because they are born in a world that isn't build for their size. It is like living in a world where everything was the size of a child's fun house. Nothing is built for them, and because of this it is difficult for them to associate anything together. However, they should be able to learn anything they wish much like a normal person, and with the intensive world around them. Things will be harder to grasp. When they talk, they might use incorrect grammar or have poor word usage, but will be entirely capable of eloquence given the knowledge of what the word means and given a little time to sound it out.

However, this childishness is not without it's drawbacks. There can be 'wise children', such as there can be 'wise half-giants', but they are prone to fits of sadness and rage, much like a child. This can be caused from genuine sources (friend died, important thing stolen, got in trouble) or relatively minor things, (got called a mean name, put their pants on backwards, ect)
Imagine an angry child getting upset and throwing a tantrum. That is what could happen to a half-giant that is fairly ignorant of the world around them.

Now, what is a smart half-giant? I've been talking about this throughout this little post of mine, and many will scoff. 'Half-giants are idiots. They're gullible, and have no thoughts or ideas of their own.'
Half-giants are listed as easy to fool. And that may be true. But if you tell a half-giant who knows his color that the sky is blue, he or she will deny it, and insist it is instead Red. The difference between a normal person and a half-giant is that if you made  god-certain effort, you may be able to convince a half-giant he is wrong, while a normal person will call you stupid and walk away.
This is probably in part due to the nature of half-giants that they -will- sit and listen to your bullshit, most of the time, because they will entertain any possibility, for they know of their own ignorance. They are aware that they are not as fleetfooted or fleetminded, and that a whole the world is a much slower place for them.
However, much like in the story, the turtle will always reach the end of the race, the hare will just get there faster.

[Aruven]

Being curious and childish in mannerisms doesn't always speak to a particular level of intelligence.

He might sound like a five year old, but maybe he's learned that smashing your skull in gets better ends than trying to talk. Nothing stupid about that, just brutal.

I think my one comment on this, is: No, I don't think half-giant MUST be played like that. I would have a problem if suddenly half-giants were discussing the finer nuances of Oashi wine and elements of philosophy, though with a largely expanded vocabulary.

From an OOC perspective its like:

Ok I get everything i've ever wanted but my one trade off is I am not as smart as I probably want to be.

Otherwise everyone would... probably just play half-giants all the time because humans would be dead by now.

[Clearsighted]

From an OOC perspective its like:

Ok I get everything i've ever wanted but my one trade off is I am not as smart as I probably want to be.

Otherwise everyone would... probably just play half-giants all the time because humans would be dead by now.

Half-giants get massive trade-offs coded wise, over just about every other race, in return for being able to get hit by a salt worm a couple more times than the average dwarf. Agility and wisdom are very forgiving stats in other races, but can literally make a half-giant nearly unplayable. It's not fun to only be able to hold 1-2 items in your inventory or take 3x as long to raise a skill as anyone else. And sometimes an entire combat can go by before you're allowed to swing (especially if multiple people are involved). You're also the subject of everyone's attention, and everyone will be judging you.

If you play a half-giant reasonably well, only about half the playerbase will hate you at any given time. People are more wary around giants than they are around gickers.

Playing a good half-giant requires both a strong vision for the character and how to articulate it (and to win the lottery by articulating it within the parameters that rightly or wrongly, the majority of the playerbase expects) and to be willing to subvert your OOC ego.

There's a TON of things that happen or get said, that with any other character, you'd love to speak up on, address, or convince someone why what's going on isn't perfectly optimal. With a half-giant, unless it's like life or death, you pretty much just shut up and go with it.

Playing a half-giant without a good boss can be exhausting. With a good boss, you can at least switch off now and then and just do whatever they say.