Your experience roleplaying with a half-giant PC

[Kenji]

What was your experience encountering and roleplaying with a half-giant player-character?

[Paint]

My bias might be showing but I was convinced to use two awards on half-giants specifically -because- of the half-giant community. Like every award race, there were folks who disregarded the lore entirely, or who picked it for mechanics, but people do that with every race and... if I'm being frank, every class.

[Dreams]

I've only really seen them roleplayed as full giants.

[Kushion]

It was great, to the point where I wanted to use my eventual Greater on one, but had the chance removed before I could.

Doom aside, the Half-Giants were generally some of the most well thought out Award characters you would find. The effort that the players had taken into creating a culture and community was really great to see. Seeing the differences between the ones who leaned into their Giant heritage and those that didn't was also fun.

[Memento Mori]

Overall, negative.

I couldn't understand most of what they typed on account of using strings of archaic words or speaking solely in Jotun (and I wasn't about to blow a language slot on learning a language specifically to talk to a group that didn't really go out of their way to venture out of Jotunhold or RP with non-half giants).

Most I encountered referred to themselves as giants, not half or otherwise diluted heritage, and were incredibly insular.

It doesn't help that there isn't a lot of lore available to provide a suitable basis for people to reference.

Without a framework of lore, and the rest of the points above, the original rollout of "half giants" felt like massive disrespect for the existing setting - both the server, and FR on a larger scale.

[DnDeez]

gotta love seeing the archaic dialect talk get hate!!!

absolutely loved my time with the many half-giants i got to know in my time of playing, and while the archaic talk was hard to understand for me at times, it was as simple as sending the person a tell for a basic summarization of what they said (or better yet asking icly).

[Xerah]

I played a half giant briefly, but wasn't a fan. Nothing to do with the community or the players, I just wasn't happy with the build playstyle. I suppose I didn't feel super comfortable with the lack of lore out there for them and was having a harder time with the narrative (I don't really have this issue with fey though). Overall though, no complaints and I would say positive experiences.

In that time, I never encountered anyone roleplaying as "full giants" any more than some half-elf or half-orc call themselves elf/orc (which doesn't mean they are being RPed as full of the races). Might it have happened in some cases? Sure, but certainly not the majority.

Putting on the mod hat, don't attack your fellow players. Just because you personally disagreed with the roleplay style of the characters, does not make it a "massive disrespect" to anything. We are here to tell stories and sometimes people get to find a niche that doesn't have a huge backing of lore framework (also see fey) and they get to have fun and develop something new.

The language issue doesn't have anything to do with the half giants. A player chose to RP by using archaic words and phrases which is only connected to the giants because that was the race of the character. Any race could have done this. A human could have done this. So, this really doesn't have a place in this discussion.

I have interacted with the half-giant groups on multiple characters and were never exclusionary any more than other racial groups (elves, orogs, etc.)

[Tecknooo]

Playing as a human who joined into the 'revelries' late into the jotun-culture who had 0% giant learned were some of the better times I've had on the server as a whole. It's hard reading that folks have had a negative experience overall, but I do suppose there are always bad apples in every basket.

I learned to 'translate' for the more 'funny' words from the half-giants, having no clue what most of the words meant either, making it even more for funny times, which lead to more roleplay. It's a shame it's viewed upon in a negative light but I believe I also have bias after spending many months roleplaying with half-giant individuals.

[Memento Mori]

Putting on the mod hat, don't attack your fellow players. Just because you personally disagreed with the roleplay style of the characters, does not make it a "massive disrespect" to anything. We are here to tell stories and sometimes people get to find a niche that doesn't have a huge backing of lore framework (also see fey) and they get to have fun and develop something new.

Maybe "massive disrespect" was a poor choice of words, but considering I cut out an entire portion of watching half-giants OOC memeing in Guldorand's Square on a number of occasions and general dissatisfaction with the implementation (a general vibe of Rule of Cool winning over lore checks; half giants having even less lore than fey, and the implementation of Jotunhold in direct violation of Guldorand's Charter - which is a whole other issue of contradictory setting application that I'm not going to get into now) I felt it was less of a direct callout.

The language issue doesn't have anything to do with the half giants. A player chose to RP by using archaic words and phrases which is only connected to the giants because that was the race of the character. Any race could have done this. A human could have done this. So, this really doesn't have a place in this discussion.

It was more than one person. Likely, other half-giants inspired by the one who originally did it. This was something that was consistent and persistent in my experiences with interacting with half giants, and I do believe it is relevant to bring up because of that.

This isn't me singling out a player or pointlessly moaning about something I didn't agree with - this was something that became common among the group (which is cool that they developed something that people identified as 'theirs'), but it is not something I enjoy because I don't particularly enjoy trying to decipher RP - whether it's archaic speech, thick accents, or inserting other languages manually (like French or Spanish, for example). Yes, there are workarounds to this like sending a tell or having a translator, the latter of which I did do. But doing so takes me out of the scene and breaks my flow.

Is the language thing mostly a 'me' issue? Yes. But it's still something that accounts for my experience. And it is something that I know other people also did not particularly enjoy, and rolled with it anyway.

Given the responses in previous threads in regards to half giants and how much dog-piling there is on people who did not like them (same thing with Quackers, or any other highly divisive topic), I can't imagine you'll see many people posting about it - not to mention that not everyone frequents the forums and prefers other mediums of discussion.

This is a poll/thread asking for our experiences on roleplaying with a specific race. It's hard to critique without there being some criticism of how the players chose to RP said race, again due to the liberties taken with the lack of established lore. And if we're not allowed to give negative critique on that then why bother to have a thread at all?

[Coolguy McMagic]

My experience was an overwhelmingly positive one. The majority of Half-Giants I have met were excellent RPers - both the ones that went with the "archaic English" style and those that didn't. I have never once seen someone RP them as Full Giants and I do have to wonder if that particular accusation is stemming from a misunderstanding - obviously a Half-Giant referring to themselves as Jotun or casually speaking about Giant culture is not the same as -actually- acting as if they were a true Giant. I know the Half-Giants of Jotunhold were keenly aware of their mixed heritage and RPed accordingly.

Like others I also struggled with understanding what some of them were saying, but I personally found great enjoyment in that. Why does my character need to understand everything that someone else is saying? Language barriers and issues with communciation can actually be a lot of fun and can spark a lot of creative RP! Also, as has been noted above, the old English thing isn't necessarily tied to the race. Any Half-Giant is free to speak in their own manner of choice. No one will call them out on it.

I've also found the group that settled in Jotunhold to not only be amazing in their RP but also to be incredibly inclusive, not just to other Half-Giants but to other races as well. They had a lot of Elven, Human and Kenku allies. Pretty much anyone that showed up was welcome, from what I have witnessed. Whenever they held an Event, there was a massive turn-out. They also managed to do that without being disruptive to others - they never interferred with the business or politics of other settlements, from what I have noticed. Frankly, if you didn't like them you could just ignore them without too much issue.

On a side-note, a sudden surge of activity of a race when it is rotated in or dropped to a lower award tier is completely normal and to be expected with the way our current award system works. It's pretty much unavoidable. So yes, there may be a short period of time when the server may feel "oversaturated" with a certain race after an award adjustment, but it will fade over time and shoud not be seen as a reason to not make appropriate changes to rotation or award tiers.

[Madgamer13]

I've shared quite a few moments with Half-Giant characters and been around Jotunhold more than a few times. I've been immersed in their individual quirks and lore, and have enjoyed my time with them.

Looking through the various feedback threads on Half-Giants, I'm quite amazed. I see frequent complaints about lore and how they speak in-game, and the complaints baffle me. I don't see how a lack of lore backing is in any way the fault or responsibility of Half-Giant players, and I applaud that they attempt to cultivate any lore at all for their characters when they don't have to make anything. Embracing blandness is very easy when you have no lore to call from.

Their use of language, clearly most deeply inspired by Grym's excellent work in seating a distinct accent for the race, isn't even the most egregious use of accented language I've seen on the server. I need only motion a hand to the French/Spanish Knights in Cordor, the Spanish sailors in Guldorand, or the occasional Tak from characters that may or may not be from societies that are Polish or Ukranian in their theme! Why complain about ye'olde engrish in Jotunhold when people are Oui-ing in the streets of Cordor with their Amors? And, of course, lets not forget the excessively rare example of the Drow that accents their language with 'Moi'. Why, I eagerly await the day a Kara-turan walks through spamming Desu, -San, and Arigato. Quibbling over the accented language Jotunhold inspires is a pointless endeavour when everybody else gleefully assumes the form of medieval fantasy cowboy ronin persian prince of the high seas.

Dwarves are exempt of this, of course. It wouldn't be a DnD fantasy setting if the dwarves weren't Ye'-ing into your face with ale-filled breath.

[Biggrouse]

Highly positive. They're not my personal thing, and I was never involved in the scene beyond visiting Jotunhold a few times across characters, but I have nothing but respect for them. Frankly I am surprised the reception is so mixed.

The Jotunhold community was easily the most love and care I've personally seen poured into a racial-based community on Arelith, maybe any group overall on the server. Cultivating so much story around a race that took at least a greater award to make, and isn't swelling with official lore, was impressive and proves that it can be done.

Jotunhold also handedly avoided the problem of race-based communities being too insular and difficult to interact with as an outsider. While still being firmly based around half-giant culture, other races were invited to events quite frequently, and, as far as I've been able to tell, could easily become a part of the scene if they just expressed genuine interest. It felt like a rare case of a community that lifted up every character around it and never put anyone down. At the same time I never felt as though they were 'leaving their lane', so to speak. They were there, they let you know they were there from time-to-time, but their presence was rarely dominant outside of Jotunhold.

I don't fully understand the commonly raised accusation that they just 'roleplayed as giants'. I never saw this once, at least if the criticism is interpreted literally. Is it because there were many half-giant players who leaned heavily into jotun culture? Is it because they spoke the language often? Is it because some characters favored the giant half over the human half? I suspect the same criticism could be made of half-orc and half-elf roleplayers if the same lens is applied. Certain characters are always going to lean into one side of the ancestry more heavily; this is a well established part of the setting for other halfbreeds. Some are torn between worlds forever, some try with varying degrees of success to embrace one culture/identity. I certainly saw half-giants of both stripes.

I feel like, ultimately, it's quite a sad thing for me to see a passionate community disregarded because of flat criticisms such as "I didn't like how the characters spoke" or "I don't like there being so many large characters in the room". It's valid to feel that way, sure. But I hope that even those who aren't fond of half-giants, for any reason, however nuanced or basic, can take the time to appreciate how much energy, effort, and love was put into their community.

My only regret is that none of my characters really approached the community beyond introductions and a few visits. As someone who often plays niche races I'll forever be inspired by what they managed to accomplish, and maybe even a bit jealous.

[Windows95 CD-ROM]

I'm going to be frank and speak plainly, once I spent about 3 hours roleplaying in the Jotunhold with the group that occupies that area. I found my experience to be less than stellar because of ooc memery that happened during my time present, while I was attempting to have normal roleplay. There were nonstop grease and faerie fire spells being shot around, people punching and hitting each other, slipping up on grease while I was being taken on a tour of Jotunhold. It was to the degree that someone in the group asked them to settle down IC but it didn't abate. I guess the best IC way to describe my visit to Jotunhold would be like visiting Camelot from Monty Python's quest for the holy grail.

I had a genuine interest in rping with the characters there and discovering what they were about, and accepted the invitation to come and roleplay. The person there who I distinctly recall sitting down to rp with me meaningfully was the leader of the Jotunhold group, Grym. He was the reason I stayed around for 3 hours before I decided to log for the evening, I decided to not return because I didn't find the shenanigans much to my taste.

I also saw these shenanigans happen in the Guldorand square. Aside from Grym who I often found trying to be very inclusive of people being able to participate in the Jotunhold group, I found this behaviour to be disruptive to my immersion and didn't really encourage me to play with the group past being forced to see them as IC oddities when I'd see these things going down. Its a good thing to try and be inclusive of people, but your efforts can be easily defeated if you don't try to uphold a level of integrity for the setting you're trying to uphold in a group you want to include people in on.

[Memento Mori]

I don't see how a lack of lore backing is in any way the fault or responsibility of Half-Giant players...

That part is specifically a criticism about how the devs implemented the race and Jotunhold - not a criticism of the players who chose to play what was offered with what little support there was. Is it cool they managed to make their own thing and become known for it? Yes. Does it lend precedence on lax setting accuracy and enforcement? Also yes.

But this isn't a thing unique to half giants - it happens across various races, classes, and alignments on Arelith, but is worth mentioning where applicable.

When half-giants make a return (because let's be honest, this poll is probably just an excuse to confirm a decision already made), I would prefer that there is some substantial race lore/identity/expectation - which should have been there from the beginning - so that it's not so heavily reliant on headcanon.

Their use of language...isn't even the most egregious use of accented language I've seen on the server...

Trust me, I am keenly aware of this and this is not a complaint that I reserve solely for ye olde english. Overall, I perceive the overuse of accented language and straight up speaking other languages as an annoyance. A word or phrase every once in a while can be tasteful and lend flavor, but that's not generally how people use it. As an aside, I have seen Kara-turans do just that (as well as most of the other examples you've shared).

Dwarves are exempt of this, of course. It wouldn't be a DnD fantasy setting if the dwarves weren't Ye'-ing into your face with ale-filled breath.

Nae runnin'.

[Rocky Mountain Foothills]

I have always been captivated by the rich role-playing experiences in Arelith, but nothing has ever matched the impact the half-giants had on me.

The half-giants brought with them a deep appreciation for ancient classical stories and sagas. Their characters embodied the spirit of these grand tales, reminding us all of the power of storytelling. They were larger than life, not just in size but in the ideals they represented. The feasts, the ordning, the way they clung to Jotun culture— It was this spirit that made me leave Skal for the mainland, eager to be part of something so profound.

Yet, what made the half-giants truly special wasn't just their lore or their RP; it was their inclusivity. They welcomed everyone into their fold, making the experience all the richer and more memorable. For me, it was 100% the best RP I've ever encountered on Arelith.

[DeepWebAssassin]

I’ve only ever seen them pretend to be full giants, eschewing all of the themes that usually come with “half breeds” elsewhere in the lore (orc, elf, etc).

While I respect the unquestionably large amount of work that went into building the “half giant community” people are talking about, I will say from my own personal viewpoint that I think the community failed to find an identity that was meaningfully distinct from full-blooded giants to the point where even oocly I saw many people referring to them simply as “giants” and not “half giants.”

It always seemed like the players involved would all rather be playing full blooded giants and took half giant because it was as close as they could get and they knew they could get away with leaning very heavily toward RPing a full giant.

I saw many instances of half giants claiming full giant status and even talking about their non-bottom rank in the Ordning. For me, it was disappointing overall because I felt like there was potential for some cool half-breed struggles to be portrayed but it ended up feeling like nobody was as interested in that as they were in larping as a full giant.

[Rubricae]

they were pretty cool
didn't really like how everyone started to mimic svrtr after a while but that's a personal thing and shouldn't reflect on the race as a choice overall

also the "but the lore" - my brothers and sisters in cyric this is a homebrew island set in forgotten realms. there is no obligation to only accept or deny something based on the amount of footnotes alone. should they have been goliaths? probably, but no one mentioned it during the dev cycle that preceded their implementation.

it genuinely bothers me that most of the "keep half giants gone" talk comes because people chose to speak like someone out of beowulf. god forbid someone tries to speak in a different manner.

[Hadals]

I've already mentioned this in private, but I'll put it here also.

My experience with it has been mixed, I usually only see two types of Half-Giant; "I am definitely related to Giants" and "what's a giant?"

I agree with Xerah in thinking that there wasn't enough available lore to plume through and act as a guide. I know the first thing I do when making a character is to boot up the FR wiki, the monster manual, etc, to get a better basis for race, class, and birthplace. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but there isn't that available for the Half-Giant. It was cool seeing these Ordning rejects, but pretty immersion breaking to see people just take the race and use no identity because "I'm tall."

On another point, I actually enjoy the idea of Arelith creating its own races and classes, providing we don't drown the island in them. Arelith is a unique place and it should be allowed to have a unique race/class or two, with sufficient lore backing it; the dreaded who, where, what why, when.

You really notice when a Half-Giant is done well, and I can't praise enough those that do - I think having them around adds a nice bit of identity to the server. I hope the race comes back, but I'd want them to have a thorough article or two on the wiki and potentially a "How to Giant" before that happens.

Short edit: on the topic of other dialects and mannerisms, such as ye olde giant speech, I think that they also make a huge difference in enriching and painting the picture of a character or place when done well. If you're going to use it, make sure you research how to do it properly. It goes from "everyone on the planet speaks this shared language" that I feel we currently have to "everyone has a different flavour of this shared language", which feels far more realistic.

Tl:Dr - if you do it and do it well, I love you. You're awesome.

[Svrtr]

I'll start this by saying, I originally didn't intend to post. Likewise nor did I and nor will I vote, because the pole is about other people's experiences.

There has been a lot of posts here, and valid points made. I don't Intend to nor want to diminish those, and I can only speak for the half giants in the jotunhold which, based on census data, is probably 15-20% of total half giants at most and so cannot speak for other half giant.

That said, there is one thing I would like to comment on, the roleplaying as full giants. While I expect there to have been some for sure, just like I have seen some roleplay as tall humans, there is one nuanced option that most at the hold embraced and that was a common discussion.

Full giants and giant kin (the four races born when othea cheated on annam, aka firbolg, fomorians, verbeeg, and voadkyn) are beholden to the ordning, a divine sort of meritocratic caste system lain forth by annam himself. Half giants do not have a place in this, and if we speak of lore semantics the reason for this IC could be because the one named half giant in lore, Brun son of hartkiller, was born thousands of years after annam went into self imposed exile.

I see the misunderstanding having twosides. The half giant side, and the non half giant side

On the non half giant side, people will see half giants honor Jotun culture and sagas and the ordning and believe the half giants do so because they fancy themselves giants. While I understand this perspective, this is not the case. The reasons the hold does so are twofold:

1) they are bastards without their own place, nor home, nor even culture to call their own. Therefore they cling to Jotun culture and honor the ordning that has no codified place for them because it's all they have to cling to for identity. A bastard's pride, a bastard's inheritance. It's all they feel at home in and so they embrace it and accept their lack of place because it is all they known

2) I have seen confusion because many players refer to half giants as giant kin. Half giants are not giant kin. Giant kin are specifically the four races I listed above. This likely doesn't help with the perception of people calling half giants full giants, but I have also seen some half giants believe they DO have a place in ordning because they also thought half giants were giant kin and giant kin do have a codified place in the ordning

However, that said? Jotun lore is cool. It's fun to be a warrior wanting to emulate heroes of old, of myth and saga, to try and likely fail to live up to them. Finding an answer to the existential question of where you belong when you belong to neither the human world nor the giant world, and finding peace in your philosophical conclusion? It's fun! Immensely so

I will say, half giant lore was in large part driven by a mutual love of history, of classical epics and myths and sagas of many a stripe. From a Maori inspired fire half giant shaman, to a Finnish inspired frost half giant, to an old Hungarian myth inspired stone half giant, and many more people discussed. This, as well as my own love of early modern English (aka Shakespearean english) lead to many tropes people see. I won't lie and say I am not responsible, and would rather all hate be directed at me, but the mutual love will persist

I will end by saying that while I love this style of half giant, for every amazing Jotun raised half giant I saw two amazing human raised half giants, and I loved them as well. Their fun was great and the contrast they brought was great, as do I love seeing people have fun and even have reason to think back on their roleplay. I and the hold loved having gnomes visit to talk about matters of their sciences we IC didnt understand, of having contests of strength with visiting dwarves who wanted to challenge us, of discussing poetry with elves, and having people see this niche we wanted to carve out and hope they could enjoy it

This post is getting long and I should focus on work but I hope people at least can see the place for nuance of half giants who know they have no place and yet honour what scraps they can muster of the heritage they have

Finally, I think it would be good if people not try to lump all half giants together. I know what we did In the hold is divisive as is seen here, but what we did only accounted for a very specific group of half giants who were arguably disproportionately more visible. So drawing the distinction about what was seen is extra important

Finally finally, be good to each other everyone (and give Beowulf a read if you haven't)

[Sincra]

Not good.

[Iceborn]

Consistently positive.

I don't get the complaints of people saying they are roleplayed as full giants.
How is that an issue?

If I play half elf, and I choose to lean on the elven side of the culture, will I get people telling me I should've just played a full elf?
I feel it's a nonsensical argument to make. A step short of dictating how other's should be roleplaying their character, a "you are doing it wrong" statement.

The same as it has always been IC, half-anything always means more narrative options. Is a half giant a pariah? An exile? A paragon?
is your half elf? Are halflings, which by all accounts having their own race and culture, are still inevitably tied to a human perception? There's no 'wrong take' to have IC; as long as you know that your character claiming one thing and the reality of it can be different, then there's never been an issue. In that regard, I am fully allowed to have a palemaster that claims themselves as a great lich - an orc rogue that leaves no witnesses, and thinks that's the ultimate form of stealth - a half elf that is sorely trying to pretend to not have the faintest bit of elven blood in their veins. Those are all options, a few in literally an infinite amount of social constructions, and none are wrong.

I never had any expectations for half giants, I didn't even know they were introduced until I stumbled onto one randomly coming out of the Nexus portal and gave my elf the scare of her life.
Was every encounter meaningful? No, definitely not.
Was every giant unique and interesting? Probably not.
Is there some people that had absolutely no idea what they were doing and just chose the race for the mechanical benefits? Absolutely, and that happens with every race.
But the ones I got to meet and interact with more often amused me, and I felt they were a good addition to the server.
The ones I didn't meet and I heard about painted a good image, the feeling that people had good fun interacting with them and whatever shenanigan they get up to in our roleplaying world.

[Sincra]

Consistently positive.

I don't get the complaints of people saying they are roleplayed as full giants.
How is that an issue?

Because they're not.
Have been told to not.

[Inordinate]

I am sure a lot of perceived friction could have been avoided were any of the giant lore accessible outside of the server, especially for people who wanted to play a half-giant but had no real idea where to source information that would have been importantly relevant to playing one. Especially so since source material for Arelith's giant/half-giant lore doesn't sound accessible from common source books people look to for relevant 3.5e content.

If only there was a place for it...

(For the record the half-giant encounters I've had were almost entirely positive, else neutral)
((This post was made immediately after looking at the Arelith Wiki and finding extremely little to go off of))

[Dancing]

I picked negative.

My reason is a general problem with roleplaying fantastic races.

It is hard to play the special in special characters consistently.

This is an issue that I see with non-special characters. I have encountered so many low-level characters in the sewers of Cordor or Andunor who are emoting and expressing what makes their character different from every other low-level character. They are establishing themselves. Then the character gets to 30th level, obtains their gear and consumables, holds a position in a faction or settlement, has a group of friends and enemies. They are established. So, when they are out and about, they put less effort into emoting, into expressing.

This is pretty common and understandable. But when it is a half-giant it feels more impactful. So when I meet a half-giant in the FoD and they don't even emote *is really big and even the trees seem smaller in their presence. * or whatever it just feels uninspired.

[30 RANGER FROM THE MOON]

everyone talking about the "unserious" nature of the half-giant players should scroll out on their binos and ask themselves if they're attributing meme behavior to the race rather than the playerbase.

i can guarantee they've seen this exact same thing elsewhere and forgotten about it. sure, half giant players were really lighthearted in a lot of scenarios and that's something i've personally witnessed.

but you know who else does this stuff? grease spam? faerie fire spam? hasting up and running in circles? elves. don't see anyone making a thread about removing elves because of goofy players.

in both instances, this behavior has nothing to do with the race and everything to do with culture and playerbase.
yes, there is a lore accessibility issue. yes, there was an annoying amount of them trying to mimic Grym's manner of speech.

why did this happen? because there was no precedent except for Grym, so people latched onto it instead of doing their own thing. we saw this exact same phenomena happen with gloamings. so many gloamings speak in third person, so many of them will say "The <proper noun>" etc.

again, this has nothing to do with the actual race. it's a cultural void being filled by people copying something they find interesting.
if they're to return (which they ought to) then it ought to be done with more care and consideration. what does that entail? not my decision, but arelith continues to have this issue of "X exotic race is around and people want it but the culture they develop is poor."

so clearly something needs to be done in the light of making sure people play award races to a standard. (applications are not and never will be the solution.)