Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
So, thinking about Metatypes, and whether or not they're "worth it". This is purely mechanical consideration, assuming that you can make an interesting character with pretty much any metatype/group role combo, and aren't coming in with a picture.

So, being a troll costs 40BP. However, you get, essentially, 8 free points in stats, for a net benefit of 40BP (-40+80=40).
Ork? 20BP, +5 stats. 30BP benefit.
Dwarf? 25 BP, +4 Stats. 15BP benefit
Elf? 30 BP, +3 Stats. 0 Benefit
Humans? 0BP, +1 Stats (Edge). 10BP benefit

This doesn't include the value of other benefits, such as vision types, dermal armor, or the like.

Assuming you are making a character who makes use of the stats affected, why NOT play one of these? Or, for that matter, why play an elf if a human works as well?
There are a few reasons. First of all, all stats are not equal. Edge, for example, is really powerful, and gets better each point you put into it. A human with 6 or 7 edge is very strong on that merit alone.

Second is role play considerations. A Troll will have problems walking through doorways, and with racism. Not something that should be matter for points, but there it is.

Honestly speaking, the character creation system for SR4 is terrible, just awful, older editions had metatypes actually have meaningful costs.