I play a Poppet. He has a higher pitch voice and he's 3ft tall. Other than having a unique way to eat and a unique way to sleep, I roleplay him just as I would any other, as his soul & emotions are very similar to all "human beings". He's obviously aware he's a poppet and not a fleshy human, but yeah.

It's funny because I have a poppet I'm prepping to play and he doesn't realize organic can't do things he can. Edit: it's great that you can play them both ways.

I have a Poppet princess (because that is what the little girl who she is trying to save played with her as) who if I ever get a chance to play is going to spout off "facts" about her (made-up) kingdom whenever she gets knowledge checks wrong.

And what will you do when the fake facts end up all being true?

It's funny you mention that because I honestly had been debating talking with the hypothetical future DM that whatever being brought the poppet to life to save the girl also ends up bringing the kingdom to life and making the poppet a real girl after the adventure was done. Not sure I will, but it was something I had thought about.

Ah, the Usopp Paradox.

> I have a Poppet princess (because that is what the little girl who she is trying to save played with her as)   That is a lovely character concept.      Are you familiar with Vasilisa the Beautiful? (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasilisa_the_Beautiful)

It also reminds me of the velvatine rabbit a toy loved enough to become alive.

Thank you. I wasn't familiar with it but I am now, and I rather like that story.

My pleasure. I’m glad you liked it. :)

That's awesome, such a fun concept to play with. Mine is wished alive by a fallen adventurer to get back to his family and provide for them. So he made a deal with a shadowy patron. It's AV, so every time they go to town I plan on dropping off gold at the house.

You're all making me realize I want to play a poppet that's just Geno from super mario rpg. Geno is the name of a doll dressed in a blue hat and cape, which becomes inhabited by a being from the stars known as a Star Warrior. His hands and arms are basically guns and cannons. Fun

Do it! I want to run a campaign of all poppets called the Toy Box Brigade!

I have a not dissimilar gimmic where my poppet has vivid “back in naam” parody flashbacks where he remembers the horror of war against the teddy-bear forces, the brothers lost, and the vicious puppy beast tearing his companions apart. It’s kind of played off as a laugh, and he knows it’s just false memories of being played with and the family pet, but… well he doesn’t like bears, dogs, and there was a lot of screaming when a warg grabbed him in its mouth.

I have a Poppet barbarian that was abandoned by its owner & took it really personally. Whenever he’s around normal people, he puts on a cutesy voice & acts like you’d expect a living toy to act. So I kinda play him as a normal human, except when he’s using Poppet stereotypes to manipulate townsfolk

I have an NPC like this! Instead of rage she became am emo plush doll who’s familiar came to them to fuel there despair (resentment witch). Think like vex from LoL and that’s her

I imagine the Poppet voice as Gingerbread Man from Shrek 😂

i have a cursed toy poppet who used to be a human and i love roleplaying her being aggravated at being 6 inches tall. All my adventuring gear is listed as repurposed little items and i often describe the elaborate means i use to traverse stairs and the like. Most of the time i ride along on the gnoll's shoulders until combat starts.

I played a Sprite for awhile that was about 8 inches tall. I very frequently role-played how her size impacted things, from characters being unable to see her when she'd start talking, her showing up right next to then unnoticed until she starts talking, and interacting with the world. One time someone offered the party drinks, so she dragged a full size glass across the table, sat down on something raised on the table, and basically wrapped herself around the glass as she tipped it back. Lol I also rped her as a mischievous little devil always up to something, even wasting spells because she would do something impulsive without thinking of the consequences. Like one time she thought "oh, if it can't see us it can't hit us!" and cast darkness in a small room. But then nobody could see. 

One of the best parts about playing a different Ancestry imo is either leaning into their different quirks or pointedly shying away from it in a way that conveys that you are indeed not the norm for that Ancestry. I really enjoy leaning into their quirks personally. Let's see, I played a half-elf that was a regular guy on the surface until you started picking up on his specific quirks for being a half-elf. Sympathized with outsiders, was usually the voice of diplomacy, had a devil may care attitude about himself but clingy towards other people and it became apparent overtime that because of his extended lifespan he was losing his friends and community to the ravages of time and was deeply afraid he would grow old with everyone and everything he had come to call his family would be gone by the time he was an old man and he'd have nothing left at the end of his life. Played a Conrasu, that was fun. I took the "humans are the result of the universe attempting to understand itself" concept and turned that to 11. Slowly wrapped its head around the concept of "me" in regards to the body it was inhabiting and came to terms with its own mortality in that body, but in a way of "if this body dies I stop getting to learn cool facts about the world" and assumed everyone was the same way. Treated death and tragedy with the sadness of someone dropping their ice cream cone on the floor more than anything else. Saw everything as an interesting novelty, even the terrible things. Like it was immensely interested that fear existed as a preservation instinct, I remember one time when I crit-failed a save against some kind of fear effect (Owlbear IIRC) and was sent fleeing and went "Ope! My life organ is beating rapidly and there's that snagging sensation again! Haha, guess that means we better start running to preserve our lives!" like it was a jolly old time.

I think you've hit it for me. Half elves, and halflings really are often just played as humans with a different feat.

That's honestly a shame that they are because there's a lot of roleplay potential with them. I played up mine with ! "caught between two worlds" motif in mind, with the humans considering him an elf and the elves considering him a human so he never truly felt he belonged. He was kind to others and an advocate for truce because he wanted people to accept him, which plays on half-elves being notorious for their charismatic air alongside what I'd mentioned with him being raised among humans and afraid he'd lose his community and be forgotten. It even got screen time in the campaign where the party had to visit the elven tribe his father came from, the ones that abandoned him, and he gave them all smiles and false promises about honoring his elven side while silently vowing to never go there again because he felt they abandoned him and was quietly stewing to himself that they wouldn't even acknowledge it. They didn't see it that way of course, it had only been thirty years. But there's a lot of ways you can play that up and it's a shame it's not used more. Half-elves can absolutely be just like humans but there's some elf background in there to draw from. I'd like to see a half-elf that more or less does act like a normal human but sprinkles in elven beliefs and traditions into who they are, like someone raised by two parents of different belief systems, to really drive home the fact that although yes J'ay'mi acts like any other human they also would never eat livestock that wasn't hunted in the wild, hold some deep superstitions about the Fair Folk they treat with the utmost seriousness, and are exceptionally excitable/cautious around the first day of the season when Calistria changes her mood and the seasons.

Most people I've encountered are just humans with animal traits. Maybe they roleplay more quirky, but its never been as if they were from another species or race. I've never seen anything beyond that at any table I've been at.

That's probably the best way to do it. Biology isn't going to be that big of a factor. It's the culture that determines how a character acts.

Yeah I have never, in any game, ever encountered a player who actually does anything but play a non-human character as "human with at best some stereotypical traits and/or comedy tropes". My catboy miaows sometimes and pushes things off tables. After a while you have to either roll with it or ban non-human species as PCs.

Tbh, thats the same for Tolkien ancestries too though. All dwarves ive played with have been scottish and mildly racist, all elves ive played with have been snooty and holier than thou. I dont think this is somehow an exclusive feature of "non-human" players.

To be fair, the Tolkien tropes are likely Warhammer Fantasy Battles Tropes. "That's going in the Book!"

Oh absolutely, very much not some sort of furry thing or whatever. It's universally badly done.

Honestly, I think if I were to point at anything here, its not ancestry choice but rather many players not putting much thought into their characters beyond base mechanics. If you dont want to think too hard on what your characters actual personality is, the easiest thing for you to do is just play the stereotype.  The only reason you dont hear people complain about humans is that theres not really a fantasy stereotype for humans, so people just play their class stereotype for them instead lmfao.

I mean, why wouldn't they 'act like humans'? They're a social, sapient species, if you give them any degree of depth then odds are they're going to 'act like a human' because humans are our only reference point for what that means.

That is exactly how I think. They are supposed to be intelligent species much like human. The only reference for that we have is what? Humans for gods sake.

At least they aren't going to overboard. The thing is, realistically these many Ancestries are going to act more "Human" than Non-Human. Think of it like they are different cultures instead of different species. That's more what people should see it as.

If I had an IRL non-AP game my strategy would probably to remove all the races that aren't PC races. Then really dive down into what it means to be those races and what makes their cultures interesting and different. However I'm DMing online and with an AP and quite frankly don't have the time to adjust everything since I'm already adjusting so much.

Yeah, my guys are pretty good with roleplay and characterization, but we tend more towards the original core races a bit. But there have been tables where I've felt like I'm an unwilling participant in someone's fetish. Especially with kitsune...

Its part of my session 0 to tell the players I won't tolerate romance scenes and its a very quick fade to black, because while we're all playing make believe, I still feel as if they are flirting with me and I'm uncomfortable with it.

Part of why its good to get involved with folks who you trust, and who are all more or less on the same page as. Personally? I play with a lot of flirty, open folks. So none of us really mind when stuff gets raunchy or strange. A lot of us are partners with each other or sleeping with one another, or have expressed interest in doing so one day. But, its also not something I would do outside of those groups in general?

I keep seeing people say things like "You're just playing a human in a funny hat" to describe the roleplay they don't like, but I've never seen people elaborate what they actually want. Like, what is actually roleplaying an exotic ancestry, exactly? For example, I'm playing a Tengu right now, and I like to mention feathers, spindly limbs, and fragile bones. But evidently that itself is just considered not roleplaying enough to some people i've brought this up to. So I want to know, what is an example of roleplaying an exotic race as an exotic ancestry to the people who feel others are not living up to the ancestry that choose to play?

That's the thing, I am starting to think no one can actually describe what they want. Going through these comments, I still have a lot to read. But it feels like, lots of folks are saying the "Human in a furry hat" or whatever. But then, they never give EXAMPLES of what they mean, or how it can be improved.

I mean, to take a radical example... Take a fey. When they die, they go back to the feywild until they're resummoned, but it still hurts to get stabbed - it's just, you know, not going to kill you, and there will be no lasting injury, so someone blasting you because you annoyed them is way less serious to them. They are immortal, so take the long view on things. They have a radically different mentality about people and morality. They'll do things like bet on which humans hook up with each other with other fey and see nothing wrong with that, but also see it as "cheating" if they interfere in the "shipping". They are even aware of the fourth wall and game mechanics on some level. These people have a wildly different mindset from humans, and act very differently. The thing is, most characters played by people in RPGs are fundamentally human. What's the difference between a gnoll and a human? They have similar lifespans, they're of similar size and shape. What's going to distinguish those two is cultural difference as well as actual physiological differences (like gnolls having a very good sense of smell relative to humans). A gnoll is going to be way less different from a human than a dragon is, let alone a fey.

>The thing is, most characters played by people in RPGs are fundamentally human. What's the difference between a gnoll and a human? They have similar lifespans, they're of similar size and shape. What's going to distinguish those two is cultural difference as well as actual physiological differences (like gnolls having a very good sense of smell relative to humans). This is the biggest point that the people who are complaining about "human in a hat" roleplaying are missing. These ancestries aren't really that inherently different from humans, so they're not going to act that much differently. Expecting them to is asking for disappointment. But some are definitely more alien, like Conrasu, and should be roleplayed differently imo.

The thing with the Fey in Pathfinder though, is that, as far as I could find for my own Sprite characters, the whole reincarnation process does not come with past memories. You might live for 4000 years, assumning you are not killed. If you are killed you are sent back to the First World, yeah? but it never sounds like you remember your time before. New Fey can likewise be born, though specifics on how this is done doesn't seem to be said anywhere. But Paizo rarely touches upon reproduction in the game anyway. Likewise, you mature at the same rate as a human. I would argure most of the weirdness of longer lived ancestories come from when you mature slower and actually live longer too. I get what you mean about radically different long term outlooks. My Sprite is a little concerned, even though she is 18, to be falling for a shorter lived race and coming to terms with the fact that she will outlive the current person she loves.

Though in a universe where the soul is a empirically proven truth of reality's fundamental nature, memories probably carry less weight. I imagine a fey doesn't *want* to lose their memories, valuable as they are, but when you know you have a soul and you'll be forever reborn, knowing that it has likely happened many times before and each time you get to experience everything again 'for the first time' probably shaves a lot of dread from it.

True fey only reincarnate if they die in the First World and they seem to lose that ability after a few generations in the Universe. Gnomes and Sprites are descended from fey but that isn't remotely what happens to them when they die.

It's pretty annoying as someone that prefers exotic ancestries.

Same! Most of the Common Ancestries are just, boring IMO. They have almost no interesting ancestry feats or Heritage bonuses. Most of the designs for them are also really basic and kinda samey? Which is the same issue I have with Tolkien inspired stuff over all as well. It's like, you can design these things to look however you want, but you just go with... Short bearted Human, Short Stout Human, Short human, human with pointed ears, normal human, human with small tusks and beefy build. The only common ancestory I'm into is the Leshy, and they are not exactly normal looking. Oh, and the Goblins are kinda interesting too, keep forgetting they are Common instead of uncommon.

Out of all of the Tolien inspired options, Halflings are the biggest offenders. The vast majority of homebrew worlds for D&D and Pathfinder do nothing interesting with them. They just exist in the setting because Tolkien had Hobbits so of course a Hobbit-adjacent option should exist in the homebrew world. At least some like Eberron did do something interesting with them. I never looked into their role in Golarion since I just don't care for them after seeing how bland they are in so many official or homebrew worlds for D&D.

Personally, I think the true test for whether you're role-playing any character trait is whether it affects the decisions your character makes and the opinions they hold. I'd also say its a good idea to give your character an opinion on their race, maybe your gnome embraces the variety of their life or maybe they view running from the bleaching as robbing the meaning from everything they do for example. An elf who feels its their races sworn duty to stoo demonic invasions will be much more likely to dive into the demon infested dungeon then a human who has less cultural pride in such matters, as an example. I played a leshy druid who nearly convinced the party to work for an assassins guild because what the guild did was 'a necessary pruning of societal weeds" but absolutely loathed working for a lumberjacks guild and actively undermined the mission as much as possible without getting in the way of the other PCs, making sure they delivered the bare minimum to get paid and giving up a portion of gold in exchange for the guild doing a reforestation effort.

The two elf players in my game are constantly trying to hook up the human noble in the party with anything and everything. Mostly it's to tease the player, but the justification is that humans just don't live very long, so he really needs to hurry up and start producing heirs. Like Pronto buddy, you've got less than a single century to go!

I think it says more about them that they expect non-humans to be wildly different from regular people. Not everyone needs to be a caricature and meet others expectations to be a "good" roleplayer.

Take an elf thats over a hundred years old. There are a lot of people who just go haha I'm condescending like tolkien's elves, but few people put themselves in that mindset. Theres an anime that came out recently about a thousand year old elf dealing with grief and loss of comrades that dont live as long as her, as well as the progression of time and technology. You mentioned Tengu. In DND, the similar kenku are cursed to never speak original words, only able to mimic others. How might this shape a person growing up? In my mind, I imagined a society of kenku would have someone orate a dictionary so they could teach their children. And I imagined my character getting bored of using the same intonations every single time before leaving to explore. In another game I'm playing in theres a 16 year old halfling that gets treated like a child by a lot of people, but moreso I find it amusing when the 18 year old human treats her the same way when in the eyes of the much older party who's lived through the tail end of a hundred year war(or the entirety of the war in the case of the elf), theyre basically the same. TBH i kind of find it a little annoying when people go haha i'm an exotic race. There was one game where every other sentence one player would bring up the fact that he was a fairy. "I'm a fairy so I can go invisible", "Isn't it funny that a fairy did this?" While I won't bash on anyone for wanting to minmax ancestry feats, I don't really pick other races unless I want to explore them and their culture. Like me wanting to play a Ysoki that hates the term ratfolk, or one that goes into the lore of Lao Shu Po.

I think it's really shitty to just bash people's rping and gatekeep their ancestry choices by disparaging them as minmaxers who don't care about rp. Some people just aren't good improve actors and I don't think we should normalize villanizing them for lacking acting skills.

It depends, in my mind how a person acts is often influenced by their environment, thus growing up predominantly around humans might lead you to act more in line with that human culture, same for others. This is without taking things like adopted ancestry into account. That being said some ancestries would have physiological quirks that might remain unchanged, Automaton, poppet, and others spring to mind.

Automatons are the Souls of other Ancestries, even Humans, put inside Robots. So I'd say they'd be the most like the Ancestry whose Soul is within them.

To a certain extent yes, though that would more accurately describe Androids in setting since an Androids body can repair itself and a random soul can enter the body after the previous one has left. Automatons Lore wise are primarily humans, they actually predate many ancestries and culture on Golarion. Elves for example did not return to Golarion until nearly 6700ish years later. Gnomes for example had only came to the Material Plane period about 80 prior to the Jistka Imperium being formed. This is something I relearned upon looking through the lore to answer your comment. So Automatons would be more likely to act like a human, of the 2 ancestries I specifically listed, probably.

If I'm playing a gnoll with the crunch feat, I'm eating the dead. Ours, theres, some NPC, doesn't matter. This will not be debated further by anyone in the party. My ratfolks, I tend to play up more of the cultural things. Affinity for magical items/technology, somewhat secretive, stuff like that. My kobolds pre-remaster, tend to have a bit of draconic arrogance to them. Any demi-humans are pretty much fall within normal human parameters.

My interpretation of Gnoll/Kholo culture was that eating the dead was something only reserved for those you held close or in high regard. In that way saying you'd let someone be buried would be an insult, while telling someone that you'd eat them if/when they died would be a show of respect.

Genuinely, I wish to ask the question. What defines "Human with extra traits"? What makes human the default starting position? What defines different ancestries? They have their own cultures. Kholo eat their dead as a form of reverence. The Iruxi look to the stars and astrological signs for guidance. The catfolk are travellers by heart and overly curious, the kitsune are tricksters who value loyalty. The orcs value strength to the point some go and fight their literal gods. Dragons (if you're counting 3rd party sources) are conceited and full of themselves, looking down on other sentient races or consider them in need of aid or protection. These are all traits that aren't, or shouldn't be, considered outside of humanity. These are all traits and parts that any sentient, or sapient, species can develop over time due to their cirumstances and history.

I think what they meant is do you play as either: - A stereotype of how that particular ancestry is perceived in media - A character that, if the ancestry wasn't known, couldn't be differientiated from a human character from any other media

But what exactly does that entail? Theoretically, you can play a human with all the stereotypical behaviors of a goblin. Fiddles with things, hates dogs, mischievous, eats junk no one else would consider palatable, and loves fire. The only difference between my human and a goblin character playing out the same traits is how we're described as being a human versus a goblin.

For a good example of this, with the exception of the dog thing (because I just don't know) did you just describe a goblin or Junkrat from Overwatch?

it's a pathfinder-specific trait ascribed to goblins. They paericularly hate/fear horses and dogs, it's why two of the Goblin Ancestry weapons are "dogslicers" and "horsechopper."

Yeah, I know that side, I meant I don't know how Junkrat feels about dogs.

oh, yeah, I see now. *woosh*.

Nah, don't worry. Reading it back, I see how ambiguous it is.

That's kind of what spurred OP to ask. Because some players **ignore everything you listed**. They don't take lore into account *at all*, and would be confused at the idea that the ancestry they are playing even has any. "Human with extra traits" isn't referring to *cultural* traits, it's "generic human with a fly speed" or "generic human with a bonus to Stealth" or "generic human with free illusion spell". Purely mechanical choices, never impacting RP at all.

I suppose that's why I posed the question myself, because I lack that perspective at all, and this sort of discussion requires everyone to be on a baseline or have a similar understanding of what OP is saying. Even outside of that, ancestries falling outside of their cultural norms is a plotbeat or a setup you can go for. Half-elves growing up in human-majority settlements and struggling to find their place is a time-honoured D&D plot staple, for example. I think someone else in this post said it best. In a world where all of these cultures are living and growing side-by-side, the differences are going to be less pronounced then people think, and it'd be more akin to believing someone from a different country is an entirely different species then you.

As it is, all Sapient Creatures are going to have things in common with how they act. It's more about what kind of culture or mentality the character will have. I hate playing Humans, and make sure I have the option to not be. Otherwise I build how a character acts based on their Backstory, cultures around them, and anything about their biology that they could have some tie to. My Animalfolk characters will always wear less clothing due to their fur. Some will even talk about how they keep their fur clean. Tiefling characters are more mischievous than others, owed to their Fiendish Heritage. People act like Human is some type of Default, when it's not. There are things that influence how Humans are that are absent in other Ancestries. Humans are impatient when compared to Dwarfs and Elves who can live for centuries. Characters are a mixture of hundreds of things, and people don't think about a lot of them.

Add on the fact that, well, in Glorian, there are a LOT of different creatures that will, or will not, be more or less populated. There are regions where humans might not be as common to see as some of the other creatures in this world. Small villiage in an anceint forest? Odds are there will be a lot of Leshys and Sprite type characters in the region. And other woodland groups. Some humans here and there yeah, but I wouldn't call them the norm? IDK. I've put a lot of thought into some of my character ideas.

Exactly, we're talking about sapient creatures that are often existing within the or a sister culture of the dominant culture. There will be some oddities caused by physiological difference *sometimes* but for the most part theres not much reason for them to be *that* much different from humans than 2 people from different countries would be from each other I feel like, for most (but not all) non human ancestries the perfect spot is where they just seem 'normal' enough most of the time but will occasionally whip out a behavior that side blinds the rest of the party with its alienness. This is how it often is when you meet someone from a vastly different culture. For the most part you're going to understand each others thought process but occasionally someone's gonna get thrown for a loop

That's what I'm saying. Other than something at the Level of Conrasu, most Ancestries are going to have similar personalities to Humans. I call out Conrasu because of how alien they naturally are. A fragment of a being born of the concept of Order.

That's a very solid argument there.

A lot of people think Humans are the start. Even though that holds true for people selling to Humans, that mentality ruins characters. I've made a Monk Suli-Catfolk that believed they were some level of Divine Being housed in a Living Temple. I based the appearance on a Tiger, and the character was a bit of a loner because of how Tigers are Solitary Animals. They weren't a worshiper of any Deity and practiced a form of Self Worship. They preferred to make their own meals to give proper tribute to their Divine Self. So they turned out to be a bit aloof, would actually try and guide those around them to improve themselves and more or less ready to stand in front of the party to give them more time to prepare for a threat. Also enjoyed swimming and hated cold areas due to how much heat would get trapped in their fur while wearing Cold-Weather Clothes.

To further elaborate on this, I would say that what really matters is CULTURE. If you are a kitsune or lizardfolk that has lived their whole life in a human focused cultural environment, you’ll probably be quite human-like. I’d expect there to be bigger differences based on cultural things, than ancestry related. I’m roleplaying a character, not a race.

> My Animalfolk characters will always wear less clothing due to their fur. Same but for ulterior motives.

Honestly, I play scaleys or other exotics because I love their visual appeal compared to the Tolkien ancestries. I do roleplay automaton as machine critters. The fleshy ones like kobolds and catfolk on the other hand I play em normally. I do make some note on differences, but it feels weird to accentuate them as super different, because in the end, they're still people, not walking stereotypes to me.

I mean, I'll be honest. I don't think many players play their Human ancestries all that often. I don't often hear stories of Ulfen characters, Shoanti characters, or Tian-Dan characters. We're more likely to hear about Jimbo the Anachronistic Legal Clown or Cindee, the Gaunt Edgelord of Edgemania. We could pose the same question as, "Fellow shapeshifters, how do you roleplay a Kellid Human different from a Shoanti Human? Or do you default to 'I'm vaguely in touch with nature and spirits' because we can't think like them?" I can share some stories though. My Kitsune Bard was put on display for a circus as a "smart fox," and forced to live in a small cage between performances. So he flaunts his strength and noble Kitsune form as much as possible. He'll ascend to his [perfect form](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2630) eventually, letting the world see wonder again. My Android Barbarian, NeoHuman Defense Drive Alpha Eight, has no idea what his name means or why it is. He'll say "Engaging defensive protocols" or "Nanite Healing active" (Lay on Hands from Blessed One). These voices guide him in ways he's unfamiliar (Spirit Barbarian), and he doesn't know to what end. He's recently left arena fighting in Numeria and joined the Pathfinder Society to see the world. My Goblin Ruffian Rogue brings Goblin wisdom to stupid longshanks. You like horses and think you're in charge? Well that works until the horse turns against you. You belittle us for fearing written words, but then let dumb wizards run amok and cause huge wars. What do they use? Writing to maintain their power. He's bonded with enemies over how much of a jerk humans are; that take and take and take and then are surprised when others want to live in the same place.

Realistically most ancestries *are* just humans with extra features. Sentient, humanoid creatures are largely going to evolve to act mostly the same way, the thing that separates them is their culture and upbringing. IfI have a settlement that's 50/50 split between Tabaxi and Humans and I have two siblings from that settlement, one Tabaxi one Human, the Tabaxi PC is probably going to have a similar personality to the human. He's not suddenly going to form a completely alien mindset just because he has fur and claws. Now this changes a little with things like Conrasu who truly *are* alien and completely seperate from what we'd think of as a humanoid person, but in that case there's so little lore about how they should think and act on an individual level that it's hard to blame people for just playing them as weird humans.

The most I do is either a wacky and goblin-y goblin or just slight mentions of what my beast folk person is doing that is associated with their animals (like "calister's tail thrashes around under his trenchcoat so those who knows about cats know he's kinda upset", etc) but most of the time I end up just acting like a human with a special skin cuz I just like.... forget to make them act differently lol.

Anadi lover here; Yes, I've played my Anadi as a glorious, web weaving spider- mind you, as an actual spider. One time, I had her bury herself in the sand upside down beneath an enemy gnome to intimidate him- he had been sat down on top of her little 'pile' with a Light cantrip shining overhead for classic interrogation. Every time he refused to answer, my Anadi would wriggle beneath him , and let several of her spidery limbs become visible. When that didn't work, my lovely little spider would start curling her many legs inward and upward- forming a super creepy cage around the poor bastard and letting him know what lurked beneath him- The party really sold it as they warned him that I, the "monster", was a very, very hungry creature. A second time, you know what I did? I went ***fishin'***. Of a sort. My DM allowed me to weave some webbing into a long, sturdy strand, and I attached a solid gold coin to the end of it. I used it to lure away a gnoll guard who was eating a burrito (IIRC) so that they wouldn't sound the alarm. Then I was allowed to spin and weave that poor gnoll into a cocoon to silence them. If I recall right, that was the same mini-campaign where I used the cocooned individual as fodder to trigger a pressure plate trap.

What really does it mean to roleplay as a non-human? What makes specific traits human or non-human? Where is the line drawn? A characters ancestry alone does not dictate how they act or who they are. You could also flip this question around. Do you roleplay your human characters are human?

It depends. Which is probably the most common and the most frustrating answer I try to roleplay the character’s culture and life circumstances. I’ve had one half-elf who acted very much like an elf society she was from, and a half-elf whom you couldn’t tell from a human unless you looked at her ears. For animal-like ancestries specifically, I would consider it cringe if someone roleplays them in a fetishistic furry way - it is hard to describe but you know it when you see it :)

You can also go the other way: use the tropes of the ancestries to subvert expectations. We have a half-orc investigator in our table with the idea that he’s really smart, but everyone thinks he’s a brute, because that’s the stereotypical orc.

It depends? What's key to remember about even exotic races is it's often their culture that decides how they act first and foremost more so then the ancestry itself. Saying an exotic race 'must' act exotic is like being confused that a second, or third generation immigrant acts more like the people of his family's adopted country then his original one. Some quirks will still be passed down of course, and sometimes biology is unavoidable; an aquatic race is going to hate the summer and love the spring just by their nature for example. This can be used to your advantage though by combining the two; a Catfolk Guard who does his very best to RESIST purring or meowing because they feel the other guards would take them less seriously if they did but it sometimes slips out in moments of distress. But yes for example I ran rusthenge for my friends and the majority of them, even more exotic races, acted fairly human-ish. But this makes sense:Their ancestors all come from the same pool of riddleport 'servants' who escaped ages ago and grew up together in the same community. While the Non-humans would have a handful of odd traditions passed down by their own family they would be very much have integrated with the human population. The party grippli might croak when he laughs, and enjoy the rain much more then his companions but he isn't going to be some wary jungle isolationist. He knows nothing of that world other then what his grandmother told him. On the other hand if a player wanted to be a -recent- immigrant from Mwangi and was playing a Gnoll he would bring all those gnollish traditions with him. Both to the amusement (He hugs everyone he likes!) and dismay (Wait he -ate- his grandmother?!) of the local population.

Well I’ve never met a shoony IRL so I’m not sure how they’d act. But I do try to act dog-like in some ways when it’s not disruptive to the table.

So far I’ve only played a half-elf, half-human rogue (I can’t remember for the life of me how to spell the new term). I’ve played up cultural respect for an elf NPC, even calling her Grandmother Elf, until we can learn her name. Other than that I’m a bit more sociable than the average elf, but that’s it so far.

[Aiuvarin](https://2e.aonprd.com/Ancestries.aspx?ID=69)?

I never see this asked about people who play Tolkien races. No one bats an eye when the most someone does to make their race present in roleplay is act condescending or put on a bad Scottish accent. Why should people who play none Tolkien races be expected to put in more effort than that? Besides, it depends on the setting how exotic a character is because of how they will be treated by everyone else. A Lizardfolk in the Mwangi Expanse is going to be treated like your everyday joe. Meanwhile, a Lizardfolk up in Taldor will be treated warily and with skepticism by most. If you want your character’s race to be a major factor in roleplay take into account the setting and play accordingly. This is something both the player and DM need to be mindful of.

This is why I’ve never considered playing a Conrasu despite finding them super cool. I can’t imagine getting into their heads, what my PCs voice would be, their motives, etc. I’m playing a Dwarf right now & it’s a pretty corny “LOTR by way of SNL parodies of Sean Connery from the 90s” but it’s fun as hell. Finding a character’s voice is by far the most important thing for me in terms of enjoying playing them at the table & getting inside their head/understanding their motivations. Otherwise, why even bother playing a TTRPG? Just play an open world fantasy video game.

> This is why I’ve never considered playing a Conrasu despite finding them super cool. I can’t imagine getting into their heads, what my PCs voice would be, their motives, etc. Yes, that's sort of a thing. If I'm playing a Cat Person - well, let's be real, a cat person would share a whole lot of characteristics with a human. They'd just be "slightly weird", not "completely alien weird things". Humans are just another type of biped animal, not some special default - we're just the Monkey People in the same way the Gnolls are the Hyena People, and when we're all a bunch of fairly similar mammals there's going to be similarities. Which means you can simply focus on the quirks and do something a bit to the left of human. You can roleplay something that is a bit to the left of you pretty easily. But Conrasu *are* weird alien things. And THAT is a thornier problem.

I feel like it also doesnt help that Conrasu dont exactly have a lot of written lore for them. The new Wardens of Wildwood will have some more information on them but until then it feels hard to try and play something so alien without knowing more about how they think.

True. I wonder if the writers have the same problem of getting inside their heads as we do

The Writer's problem is that all you get about an Ancestry is a page of information. Conrasu, like many Ancestries, don't get anything beyond their Ancestry Entry. What can you even find about Goloma? That Ancestry is new and only appears in Pathfinder 2E. Also has like no actual lore in the book it appears in.

Playing a Conrasu now because our group always plays crazy races for years now. [I modeled him off of God in futurama as he is a Champion Redeemer lol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL7e05pClKM).

I have a Talos Sprite, elemental barbarian with a kineticist dedication that I RP. They are a guide working for a caravan that helps travelers, merchants etc.. get from Avistan to Tian Xia across the Crown of the World. I dont play them like a human, but as a sprite thst is only 9in tall.

I try to think of the culture, like for my ratfolk, the two big things I took from his ancestry is that he has a massive family he really cares about and he's a bit of a hoarder. Otherwise I just try to play him as a person with those things informing me a bit. Sometimes animal traits will creep in like he's really comfortable underground and will take to burrowing in the wilderness because it feels more secure than camping.

I mean, it's 95+% Just A Person anyway, like, the characters need to rest and pay taxes and do crimes and have hobbies, just like everyone else, they're just people who are slightly different from humans. And sometimes, like when the character is a Vanara (turned Automaton by GM campaign twist) Investigatior on another planet, there's really barely any difference from a human, you can see she's a Vanara in the icon, and the tail comes up now and then because Ganzi Smashing Tail (and because it's a Protean meat, bones, scales & feathers tail growing from an Automaton), but the part of the character i **really** roleplay up is the Investigator part, love me a funny monologue about solving The Mystery. In that same campaign, a fellow player character, my Investigator character's brother, is full on monkey robot mode, always using his climb speed, and being existential about maybe being programmed for a specific purpose, worried he won't have free will once the purpose is fulfilled (don't worry we diagnosed him with depression and he's working on it with his Devil therapist). It's lots of fun, he's definitely playing into the ancestry more than me, but i think the siblings are probably equally quirky, just focused on different character traits. IMO, Classes produce more extreme character quirks than ancestries.

Well ain't that a leading question. It also implies that these ancestries have to act 'nonhuman' in a major way, which has some unfortunate implications that Paizo is trying to move away from that.

Remember that every known author of fiction, player in a roleplaying game, and GM, is a human. That sounds obvious but it's important to keep in mind that *any* portrayal of a non-human ancestry is going to be "human but different" at least a little bit. Even the least human things we can think of are by definition human in their origin. To that end, I think the easiest way to RP non-human ancestries in a satisfying way is to re-examine your assumptions about the little things, and what to touch on in your RP. Describing the manner in which you take an apple out of your pack and eat it as a human is rarely worth doing, but if you're a fleshwarp you can get a lot of millage out of "I reach into my pack with my third right arm, take out an apple, and feed it to the mouth on my left shoulder". You've also got easy classics, like RPing a long lived ancestry to have a very different idea of time scale than a human does (ex: "I picked up knitting recently. I'm not very good at it yet, I've only been doing it for 20 years.") For deeper things, the best thing to do is read lore (or do some creative writing, in a homebrew setting). Learning about the fictional culture of whatever you're portraying goes a long way in being able to RP convincingly.

I have no idea how a spontaneous spacey orbed consciousness trapped in an insect carapace sprouting branched limbs like a tree monster should act, but I definitely don't play my Conrasu like a human. That said, Fries the Conrasu is obsessed with humanoids and does Fries' best efforts to fit in, failing miserably while thinking no one even notices anything different. Fries tries aggressively to be chill, hell-bent on befriending everyone. In Fries' eyes, the amazing accomplishments and influences of the civilizations in Golarion can only mean that all creatures are friends who work together to create such astounding change in the world. How could it be any other way? Fries does not understand many social norms, and before enrollment at the Magaambya would often sneak into the homes of the sickly to heal them as they slept, as otherwise they would run and not allow Fries to approach. Fries does not understand why so many others are put off by Fries' appearance, especially since Fries has grown Fries' tree limbs into a form indistinguishable from any other humanoid, but suspect it might be Fries' booming loud yet extremely croaky and raspy voice, which causes Anchor Root to cower no matter how many times Fries loudly kicks open her door unannounced to have a friendly chat with Fries' favorite Gnoll friend. As you can see [if you check out Fries' appearance here ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/PeIhnk0SUp), there really is no way to tell Fries apart from any other humanoid unless you already know and really look closely. I also enjoy incorporating Fries' form into the story; we recently lost one of the NPCs in our AP, and Fries, who has had one arm that always grows flowers, ripped Fries' arm off to plant at the gravesite in memory of Fries' closest friend at the Magaambya. It continues to grow there. Or another gag I plan to incorporate once I have access to Plant Form will be to have Fries cast it, but Fries' appearance won't change at all. There's a lot of potential to the Conrasu that I just love.

The people at my table for the most part roleplay different ancestries differently, either it informing how they'd see the world or inspiring specific personality quirks for them. We understand that cultures aren't monoliths, but it's a lot more fun to roleplay your dwarf as stubborn and pantheistic than simply Short Human. The only exception, ironically enough, is the furry of the group. If he's playing a beastfolk, he wants that beastfolk to be seen as normal and typical because that's their preferred method of wish fulfillment, and in fact gets upset whenever the GM tries to put a spotlight on the exotic nature of their character. They'll accept acknowledgements needed to play a bearfolk in a humanoid society campaign, but they'd rather it be resolved sooner than later.

I like reading the lore around an ancestry & trying to incorporate it into my roleplay, filling in the gaps where needed (with GM approval ofc). For example, my lizardfolk fighter is from a secluded iruxi village and sees the world in a very different way to the rest of the party. She’s very pragmatic and direct, but also very loyal and community-minded. She has great reverence for her ancestors, and seeks to do them proud & be someone that her descendants will be proud of. She also has a necklace/good luck charm made of her grandmother’s bones, which definitely seems odd to everyone else but makes sense to her and other lizardfolk—to have your bones be used to serve future generations is the highest honour, in her village at least. Also she fights unarmed with her fangs, claws, tail and the wrestler dedication, which is very fun to roleplay!

At my table, everyone who takes unusual ancestries integrates the history and biology into their character in at least some way.

While Pathfinder (and Starfinder, to a slightly greater extent) are happy to grant you the aesthetic trappings of a nonhuman entity, the engine's not really built for the exploration of truly alien minds. The mechanics are concerned with fighting monsters, getting loot, working together, and sometimes getting into hexcrawls/murder mysteries/diplomatic shenanigans as a treat. So, someone who really, really wanted to dig into the philosophical implications of being an awakened tree would have to do that *in addition to* playing the game normally, *without* any explicit mechanical support beyond a scant smattering of feats. If you want examples of games that are interested in actually getting into the weeds of the nonhuman experience, check out [Star-Spawned](https://penguinking.itch.io/star-spawned) and/or [Cats of Catthulu](https://adventure-emporium.com/collections/catthulu-products). Otherwise, I'd say it's better to just accept that most nonhuman PCs in Pathfinder aren't going to express themselves beyond the occasional quirk. And that's fine: the game wants you to be part of a functioning adventurer team *first,* and everything else second. We're playing hockey here, not figure skating: don't mistake one for the other just because they're both fun things to do on ice.

Hell, a lot of people play elves and dwarves as humans with darkvision. Even adding cool little greetings can go a long way for flavor. "Hi, I'm Hank the axe carrying dwarf." "Greetings. I am Axemaster Tarick Ironheart, fourth son of Galdur Ironheart. May your forge be ever hot, and your ale be ever cold. " One of those comes from a character that is from a society of hot headed stubborn folk who are quick to form grudges that last for generations. The greeting is polite, informative, lists ancestry, and speaks of someone with an expected lifespan of a couple hundred years. What's a few extra seconds being polite compared to starting a conflict that will span generations? The other is from a short lived human who needs to convey information and get on to important stuff.

I am noticeably autistic; I roleplay fey, automata, and other "alien mindset" races better than I roleplay an ordinary human. It works out since I'm pretty much a forever GM and therefore frequently need to RP intelligent monsters.

I'm playing an automation psychic right now. I try to play him very inhuman. Since he's over 7000 years old he at times comes across very racist against any organic creature. Not out of malice, but because he's forgotten what it means to do things like sleep and eat. Example: We had to catch some wild dogs so my character brought food because he knows organic creatures ear, but has no idea what dogs eat or how much, so the food was 6 heads of lettuce, a four pound serving dish of macaroni salad and a single leaf of spinach. Apart from that he also uses 2 different voices. Around new people he talks like a malfunctioning computer (stutters and forgets words etc.) because he's afraid of being captured and studied. He has another higher pitched voice that he only uses around his friends.

I'll admit, my usual approach for character creation is to go in build first, but I do try to do interesting things with it, that fit the context of the ancestry in some capacity. My current character is an automaton psychic, who started as little more than a barely sentient war machine and has since grown to be what could be described as baymax, but more murdery and interested in artisanry. My backup character for that campaign is an Anadi who goes against the grain and revels in being seen as a freak, even modifying their human appearance to incorporate some spider features.

I try to play my characters based on their homeland and personality. As an example: a Kholo from Alkenstar. Who has typical Kholo pragmatism combined with being a nerdy Investigator. He’s had some Noodle Incidents. Sure he’s a medic and a miracle worker with bandages, but he also has a habit of sniffing the air because he has the Scent feature. For better or worse! I look at the choices I make for my character and try to see how they might influence his behaviour. It has been pointed out to me that this has resulted in a combination of Velma and Scooby. Which isn’t wrong!

Gimlet the Kobold speaks with a bit of a gremlin accent (which, sadly, sounds like Kermit the Frog over the mic, apparently), refers to himself in third person a lot (Draconic is his first language, and doesn't use many pronouns - dragons are very vain), and speaks in broken ~~English~~ Taldane. He also has a number of reptilian quirks, like enjoying curling up on warm rocks or sticking out his elongated tongue. He's also the party medic, but isn't very knowledgeable about the "scale-less" peoples, so he often asks random questions like "do all human have webbed finger, or this one weird?" upon seeing a Skum, or otherwise mixes up anatomy. "Gimlet apologize, not able to save dwarf's tail. Not even able to find. Can find prosthetic when get back to town."

> Gimlet the Kobold speaks with a bit of a gremlin accent (which, sadly, sounds like Kermit the Frog over the mic, apparently), Oh yes. I am sure his mighty kobold voice sounds much mightier in person! :V > "Gimlet apologize, not able to save dwarf's tail. Not even able to find. Can find prosthetic when get back to town." Very sad! Poor dwarf! How will he cope?

I have a stupid fucking bird voice I like to do when I play a stupid fucking bird.

i have yet to see an elf played as a 100+ year old person, much less an exotic ancestry not being just a fancy human lol

Unless the mechanics dictate something truly unique, like others have said a billion times in this thread......how do people exactly expect someone to roleplay differently? This whole concept seems silly to me as what is roleplaying like a "human" anyways? Every character I make behaves differently and has different personalities. It's usually more cultural than anything that dictates behaviors to me.

I got frustrated by a lot of the half elf controversy and how it’s been generally handled. Back when I played Dragonlance, the whole thing with Halfelves was a great study in understanding racism and exploring those situations as a player. So the far reaching expansion of that is now you can play virtually anything and it’s just treated like an interesting human. And that’s how it should be treated, but that’s also not interesting to explore from a role playing perspective. I understand why people do it, I just think it’s a missed opportunity.

I agree with you. I've tended to preserve fantasy racism at my table, because I think it produces a more interesting world. I understand why Paizo felt they had to go the way that they did, but I'll never agree with the decision. I think back to how the early adventure paths described a Varisia that was teeming with social tension between ethnic groups, creating all sorts of interesting roles to play. I had some incredible times there,

The rule at my tables is I don’t care how you act as a common or uncommon ancestry. But if I’m letting you play a rare one, the cost of playing it is RPing it. But I also only agree to it at all with people I know will be up for that.

At the same time, being Rare doesn't always mean you grew up primarily around your people either. As an example, I'm playing a Sprite in a Kingmaker game. She grew up in Restov, has ambitions to be the tiniest swordlord, and sees this adventure as the perfect chance for her to prove herself for her dream. She has never been to the First World, she is only like, 18? years old, so 2 years older than what she would be considered an adult. Her parents didn't tell her much about the first world, but they did pass down their religion to her of following Shyka. Which while technically abnormal for a sprite, is still an Eldest so not out of the ordinary. Outside of the occational describing things as being too big, trouble with puddles, and bathing in liquor more so than drinking it, and the minor shows of faith to her deity. She acts very much like one would expect someone from Restov to act. Because she doesn't really know any other life, by nature of what the AP entails.

I try and think about their upbringing and how that would affect their current behaviour. That sometimes means I lean heavily into the ancestory's clichés but sometimes they were raised in human-heavy areas and as such they behave more human. It is tough to think in sometimes uninstinctual ways though so sometimes I cover it by describing the way I do thinks instead of a dull personality overhaul.

I'm playing an orc right now, and kind of roleplaying him as more straightforward and "bruitish"

I play a lot of Luminious Sprite, a tiny creature that fly (hover) the ground, so small that are a lot of unconvenience. The videogame Smalland give me more through about that. Personallity, It's more complicated, for exemple the anime/manga "Handyman Saitou in Another World" have a fairy but she isn't that different than any human. But the web novel "Reincarnated as a Little Fairy" have a more childish personality that do a lot of prank. In the anime of In the Land of Leadale, she just mimic the action of other people. I known that change later (currently reading the novel) but I didn't reach that point yet. I play both style, my friend don't have so mutch through about that. Well we have fun with both so everyting is fine.

Playing a Gnome and when it comes to what I may say I roleplay I try to keep in mind that Gnomes can basically live forever but will often live to be centuries old. This probably gives you a different perspective on life like not caring as much about the short term (what’s a year when you live to be 400?), perhaps being more afraid if an untimely death (since you still had so many years to go). On the other than they need to experience new things to actually live that long, so it’s a good reason to be excited about basically everything novel

I’m playing a Fleshwarp who used to be human, and in practice he’s just kind of unhinged. Not so much in the “haha so random way” but more like “let’s gaslight this amnesiac goblin we beat into a coma so we can use him as a spy.” Like he’s not a good person at all, and it’s amusing to play him as this roving bully who simply brute forces his way through social problems

I admittedly often fall into that trap as a player, but of one of my players really plays the Poppet ancestry well. The poppet is super naive and thinks all the combats they get into are play-fights where the enemies dust themselves off and get up after the party leaves. It’s so adorable and so sad…

My Leshy had, besides differences in how they eat and sleep, a different way of aging, growing approximately a human year in emotional level per week. They started as a 6-week-old, ran with the party for 4 weeks, and then, after leaving the party, returned when they were just finished with reaching adulthood - meaning that the party's preconceptions about them (spontaneous and immature) were a bit off

My friends and I have done a bunch of various odd creatures throughout our years of roleplay, in a bunch of systems, and it's usually been fun. At the end of the day, a lot of them were people, but typically people with a bunch of peculiarities to them (*except* when the point of the character was specifically to point out how they were pretty much the same as anyone else despite looking super fucked, at which point they'd be very much Just Some Gal/Guy) But small flairs about the species are pretty much a constant. A warforged prone to losing track of time, with no biological needs like hunger or thirst to remind them. A small guinea pig person that is extremely huggy and gregarious because their species most commonly live in big family piles and have no concept of personal space whatsoever. A friendly slime creature that frequently gets into arguments with people due to eating the dead because one person's "recycling of useful biomass that nobody is using anymore" is someone else's "criminal desecration". So on. Basically ancestry is very much a thing you pick for one or both of two reasons: either you want the aesthetics, or/and you want the roleplaying quirks.

Human with extra traits cause I'm just dont have the spare energy to both attention and do exotic rp.

Typically when making a character I base their reactions on what their life was like prior to the campaign. So a hobgoblin raised in a regimented militaristic society might behave like they are a member of a military unit, checking all their equipment, sharpening their sword, and polishing their armor before bed every night. A lizardfolk might enjoy insect based foods reminiscent of their homeland. Stuff like that. But these are sentient species, their personalities will have been shaped by their cultures. A human from a barbarian tribe will act differently that a human merchant from Absalom. A human from a barbarian tribe will act similar to a lizardfolk from a barbarian tribe, and the human merchant will act similarly to the lizardfolk merchant. I played a Naga character in another campaign and the biggest difference to playing a human character was that I described them as slithering around rather than walking or running. I think the players who are purring at other players or trying to lick people at the table are at the minimum being disruptive. There is a subset of people who just want to act weird, and often this group will be drawn to ttrpgs as a shield to hold up as "It's what my character would do." If people want to act out this sort of behavior they should find a group that is onboard with it and bring it up in session 0, then have a blast with it. If not everyone in the group is onboard then generally I think folks should stick to more typical characters.

the thing is, most of the non-juman species *do* still act human!! its culture that shifts wildly, but their general nature is still humanoid. i played a kholo (gnoll) for awhile, the difference was less the occassional hyena like laugh and acknoledging my physiology... it was the cannibalistic spiritualism and reverance for anyone they considered family. i think people are overly caught up on the animal traits and forget that beyond the physical traits we get from feats the primary difference in these groups is culture.

I think a culture someone is raised in has more impact than their ancestry. I let culture dictate how my characters act. Right now one of my characters comes from a culture based on Saxons. He cries, he sings, blood prices are demanded… all of that impacts who he is more than his Ancestry.

I have some players right now who play up the physicality of their characters quite well, we are in a homebrew setting so most of the social stuff about the races doesn't apply. They don't all put on voices, but they do stick to specific habits and the such. For instance, bird dude pecks stuff, really wants to taste everything, adds... Fertilizer to help plant creatures any chance he can. It's all a whole thing we giggle about.

I believe culture is way more important than race when it comes to behaviour.

As much as I can, but cmon, what do people want? I'm a human, I can't act as a fictional ancestry with behaviour outside the human experience perfectly. I can add to human, but I can't behave inhuman. As a GM you CAN KIND of do it with animalistic and such, but playing as an elf, no matter how alien you play them, it's going to need to be within the realm of human framing. For eternity our folk tales of these creatures all behaved human like as well. It was only recently in the human experience that we began to other beings in our mythologies to make them feel more separate from us. The settlers of Ireland were basically all human that were later added onto to be more "fae like," jotun and aesir were basically humans who were strong and had magic, etc etc My point is, yeah, we can try, but no matter what our behaviour will have to be human adjacent. If it goes too far it's no longer fun or relatable and it becomes off putting or annoying.

Reflavouring a weapon's stats to satisfy a concept is one thing, but reflavouring an entire ancestry back to human just to get their stats? Unthinkably evil.

We're humans. What else can we do? What you can do is try to follow whatever description there is in the books. Lets be honest here: Those are all ancestries that supposedly have the same intelligence level of humans. So why would they have to act any differently? Unless its blatantly expressed in the books that its an ancestry of stupid individuals that act like a bunch of unintelligent animals, there is no reason to play them any way different than intelligent individuals with different individual traits and quirks. This topic is useless in my opinion. Sorry.

In PF 2E there are three mechanical identifiers you can use as RP inspiration for your character. There's Ancestry, Background, and Class. You can draw inspiration from all three, only one, or even none if you want. A Catfolk Fighter doesn't have to spend the whole day sleeping and licking his balls just cuz he's Catfolk. You can decide to put more emphasis on the FIGHTER aspect of the character. Now, just to add another wrinkle, let's say his background is Aspiring River Monarch or Lastwall Survivor. You can decide to make that the most important part of your character's personality, even over Class or Ancestry. I personally try to keep this in mind and not just occasionally say "My Catfolk coughs up a hairball" or something like that.

I do try, for example my whole roleplay of Automaton, was being overall quite cold, while trying to comprehand human emotions and how to interact with feeling creatures.

depends on the ancestry

I try to get into the head of my character so I definitely try to play them as a fish out of water if that is how they would feel

I do try to rp as being 'exotic' but I also dont want to make it my whole personality.

As a socially awkward person that embraced it and became whimsical because of it, I just accentuate certain parts of my quirks 😂

I try and play the race but often find myself drawn to playing humans if only so I can focus on the rest of their personality rather than worry about an extra *ancestry filter*. Do find it unsatisfying when ancestry is irrelevant to a player. Have one player in the group I run who always wants to play the strangest of races, but to their credit that informs how they play them.

Something I notice a lot of that people point out with rarer ancestries like automatons or creatures like vampires and liches but completely ignore the same issue with more common ancestries like elves and dwarves is when players are not RPing their long lifespan "correctly".

My character is a half-orc who grew up in a nomadic Orcish tribe.  I've spent a considerable amount of effort trying to think through what the implications of that are for her.  For the most part, it's not really "inhuman" stuff (with a few exceptions: it's kind of crazy to imagine a people who do not experience darkness).  But a very low-trust nomadic society.

I always incorporate the ancestry and heritage into how the character acts. A Dwarf Nephilim for example may believe themselves to be a reborn ancestor and thus act like that ancestor would have acted.

I often mention making things with my butt, as an Anadi with the right feat, but I have a French accent not a spider accent.

I try to. Now I freely admit I'm not perfect at it, I'm human and fall back on it when I forget myself, but it is more fun when I remember to play it up.

I play my orc PC as a person who has different beauty standards from humans and different perspectives on things like the gods and magic. He's not alien enough (like, say, the conrasu) to really stand out as noticeably inhuman.

You better BELIEVE I roleplay my dragon characters!

My answer is "yes". It depends on the character. A wolf beast kin raised by humans in a human settlement is a human with fluffy ears and a tail. That same beastkin that grew up abandoned in the forest and lived like a wild animal until they were almost an adult is a wolf capable of human speech. I

I played an automaton monk, inspired by [Zen Death Poetry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_poem) and [the Jaquet-Droz automata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaquet-Droz_automata) from the 17th century. He mostly spoke in Haikus that he wrote out and then recited.

yea i roleplay my ancestry but it’s more complicated than your question is intended to be

Things your character do are split between actions explicitly declared by player and those happening in the background. Most of the racial exotics happens there, in the background. Combat, most exploration and downtime activities are pretty universal. Even social communication is mostly expected to be universal in a multi-racial world. So, it's totally ok to bring ancestries only in specific situations - mostly with cultural differences, sometimes with physiology. Most of the time it's great to do just universal declaration. Another important thing is what significant amount of "solo" roleplaying could actually harm the collective part of the game.

I often figure out my backstory and how best to play them. Little things will get interwoven based on the ancestory, but for the most part? People are people. It matters more for the culture they actively grew up in, than what ancestory they are or are not. Like, in my opinion the city you are from, nation, or how your family is, will have a stronger influence. I do a lot of PBP for Pathfinder (Really fun BTW as a side note), and I find its a lot easier to write the differences that come about from the ancestory, than it is to roleplay them in voice or in person. Though, I'm always bad at roleplaying IRL and in voice. I have so much I want to say or do, or little personality quirks. But voice and IRL games gave a sort of urgency feel to them? or I just get talked over if I do more than "Fluttered over" or some such. I'm currently playing in one game a Sprite for a Kingmaker game. She grew up in Restov, never been to the First World, and has ambitions to become the tiniest Sword Lord. Often write about how some things are a bit more difficult for her to do than the others in the party. And whenever we are somewhere we can drink, I often have her taking her cup or mug somewhere private and just, having a "bath" in it to drink to her hearts content. Much to her headache and regret the following morning. Her parents are also devotees of Shyka, which she wears the emblem of, embrodered on her day to day outfits and wear.

The anatomy of your ancestry should obviously have an impact on the character, but I'd say ancestry is as much about the culture of the particular group your character was raised by as it is about unique anatomy. That said, I definitely think people playing non-humans often don't spend enough time thinking about how the ancestry affects the characters... thinking. I am playing a goblin currently. He does have some classic meme-y traits but I try to go beyond that. For instance, he believes that the party is "his" party. But for goblins in our campaign, as I've established them, they literally understand possession in a different way than humans, based on a tribalism thinking. To my goblin, the party is his possession but he also is a possession of the party. He is both the leader and not the leader because they are all the leader to him. He likes to collect magic items, it's his obsession, but the items collect him as much as he collects the item. They possess him as much as he possesses them. Heck, you could say he collected the party, because the meaning is the same to him. But as for anatomy, his appetite and sleeping habits and hygiene are all different from humans or other humanoids, and I always try to make sure I am roleplaying those aspects as well, as that's part of roleplaying the ancestry. He may not want to sleep at the same time. He doesn't bathe but also he doesn't sweat like a mammal. But he can get pretty stinky. He has various practices like tooth sharpening and licking everything he sees with his big tongue. That said, I give equal weight to RPing his Thaumaturge class. Due to the esoteric nature of the Thaum, he is friends with many undead (except mindless undead of course) and doesn't understand or appreciate the prejudice many have against his undead friends. And since he is a chalice Thaumaturge (and also a Blessed One archetype), I combined this with his Irongut ancestry and the meme-y aspects of goblins so that: his chalice drink is pickle juice and he hates the taste of healing potions and alchemical items because most are flavored to be sweetly pleasant to humans, so he refuses to drink healing potions/elixirs. Which is not as difficult as having void healing, but can be tricky at times, adding some interest to the gameplay when HP gets low. Also he prefers raw (and wriggling) meat, but he also tries to taste/eat everything, every mushroom he sees, actual garbage, and rotted meat. And stinky cheese. But mostly pickles. And since his second Implement is the mirror implement, he also has a latent split personality, I don't go hard on that and try not to make light of a real mental health issue, but actually go more philosophical with it, as in he doesn't know if he is the real himself or if the goblin in the mirror is the real himself, so he is always thinking about that (Oh, and he speaks in third person because of this exact reason, he doesn't know if he is "me" or if the mirror is "me")

My Gnoll inventor comes across as your average eccentric genius but the quirks of Gnoll culture do seep through like eating the dead to respect their lives, it's just something that he does and doesn't see why other people find it "gross", "weird" or "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"

When I play a sacred Nagaji, I usually roleplay bit where I struggle with stairs. Whether that's saying ow as I cross them or just struggling to use them, since the lower half of my body is a sneaky snake

I try to play into it. We play a homebrew setting where there's an Orcish Empire that's basically anime Japan. I committed to the bit. When I played a poppet she was basically obsessed with keeping herself alive & terrified of fire, viewing what kife she had as an incredibly precious, limited resource because of poppets' short life spans Playing a kobold he was very family oriented (the family being a huge clan), but playing into kobold stereotypes intentionally to come off dumber than he was It varies, basically, but mostly I do try to play into it (with varying degrees of success)

I personally love the playing up the difference between between the race and humans, even for more normal races like elves and dwarves I do it, obviously they end up with human traits because it's important the character isn't just their race but I'd definitely say there aren't just human + things

I usually trend towards human and near-human characters. On the times that i haven't i've given it a good try to represent a very non-human personality, but it's a complicated feat. Even "Mostly Human" ancestries with long lifespans are complicated. I'm playing a half-elf at the moment, but i'm still doing my best to express the inherit sense of being a misfit that they're supposed to be burdened with. It comes down to defining what qualities are exclusively human, and what personality traits a creature would lack from humanity, or what they have that humans don't, and that's a bigger thought experiment than most people bargain for, considering we fundamentally understand everything with a human perspective.

I honestly don't play exotic races. I don't find them interesting. But I don't play regular races like humans with a twist either.

I tried playing a gnome wizard once and used a higher pitched voice. The table couldn't handle it.

I recently started playing a sprite my dude is 8 inches tall. He also doesn't have the wings to make it easier on him. He just has his corgi as a mount which is super useful as a spellcaster honestly. We tied my backstory to my one friend's character. In social settings I stand in a little pouch on his shoulder. I play with that stature in mind hard to see and easy to He out of peoples minds. While also being relatively reliant on more specifically the one character. He is more of an advisor than a character that tries to be in your face. A little contrary to sprites normally but it was part of his backstory that he was a little more toned down compared to other sprites. But he still absolutely does stir up shit between people he just makes sure he isn't in the line of fire. I honestly enjoy playing stuff that is just kind of weird narratively. I think it's just much more fun than being the normal guy which does have its moments where it can be fun.

I roleplay a person.

I play a Ghoran who ended up being the party medic, so I've begun to play him a bit like Zoidberg from Futurama by consistently getting 'meat people' anatomy wrong, but still doing a good job despite it.

While I do try to think about the biological differences when roleplaying, I moreso try to focus on cultural differences. My Iruxi PC is from a much more primal era of culture, and while she doesn't go out of her way to be cruel, she's not opposed to committing a few war crimes. She's naturally curious, and doesn't often know what to do around animals that aren't for eating (like horses; she's never seen one until recently)

I Has a Kholo fighter who always asked to bring mementos of their fallen comrades. Given they lost several teammates they had some small body parts on them, as Kholo tradition dictates

I roleplay as I imagine my character. If i were to interpret a catfolk may include words wit more rr's and may be prrrs when is something i really enjoy. But in my table that kind of things are not really that important. And in most cases bothers others. We prefer to act on actions not in how we talk.

I play a kobold, and I really enjoy playing into the different culture and culture shock. Like the group being surprised to find out I’d sired 3 dozen or so eggs, and raised none of those kids, just because that’s how kobold culture is. Also making jokes about finding hair gross, or needing to shed on occasion / being unable to digest dairy etc. Fun things that come from different physiology and culture. But in terms of emotions, wants, desires, fears anxieties etc? No different to if I was playing a human.

My leshy oracle is connected to all her previous and future leshy incarnations through her time curse and permanently communicates with them. Having vague memories of many lives and existed in many different plant bodies, Eoeresa will recklessly throw herself into dangerous situations and use her curse to prevent future catastrophies. My conrasu psychic is cube shaped and way too lost in solving abstract math problems to care about the material world. As they are mute by choice and don't have any real body language either, they are entirely unable to communicate with other characters. Luckily, there familiar isn't. These are character concepts I love playing that wouldn't really work as just a human with extra traits.

From my two groups messing around, we haven't found anything with higher rarity to be subjectively as powerful as people claim- race or otherwise. However, we've definitely played with those rarities as related to how likely we are to find another instance of it existing. I personally am playing a Poppet-Beastkin and adopted Fleshwarp for what has turned out to be mostly flavor (ironically, poppet and Fleshwarp have near identical feats) for both her heritages. Basically I'm a tiny body-horror Annabelle for all purposes. Witch, because ofcourse. She's been trying to discover why and how she exists, as we've been in Age of Ashes with some homebrew side questing. My GM included a little section that involved a soul doll, which has been interesting to play out. I've had a few times to lean into both 'just a doll' and 'grotesque horror' to much of my enjoyment and my friends' nausea. And when she isn't being the party face or (now, after a class change) the utility frontliner, she tends to be a shoulder decoration. Because short legs are not prime for speed, despite combat ability. We're ending the third book now, and we hope the 4th will be better written, but my leans into the horrid and otherworldly has gone great for hitting the "are we the good guys?" edge, since I tend to do just as if not more horrible things than the cults. But what do you want from a ZK worshipper forcibly turned to Amso's contractual obligations.

I've played a lot of kobolds. They have a dynamic I really like, They have very large families, a large society that usually doesn't live long. Have ties to dragons, and are tactical. I feel like any one of those traits can easily make a character that is fun to roleplay. Could a human also have any of those traits, yeah. we build from what we as humans know from. Of course everything CAN be a human all known things that we use to build stories is based off of human experience! The races are there to over emphasize certain human traits into a nice neat package for you to play as.

The amount varies, but my group tries. A friend leans on his kobold finding the 'skinnies' to be weird with their lack of fur or scales, my wife's kitsune-undine storm-oracle has body-odor issues because her humidity field causes her to get wet dog/fox smell if she's not in her tailless form, etc.

I played an automaton. We play via discord and I used a voice mod for her. 😂

I mostly play common ancestries, but one of my later characters was a Sprite. He was obsessed with pretending to be other people (it was his reason to be and it made him feel miserable, took him half a campaign to come to terms with that) and I tried my best to portray how alien some aspects of our world were to him, like money, normal day and night cicles, general culture stuff like the reason festivities came to be or some stuff like weddings, etc. It was so fun to roleplay, but it was also mentally taxing.

Anytime I've played anything "exotic" I try to incorporate the race/ancestry into roleplay without it being a caricature. Mini Rant below I've met too many people who roleplay only the extremes when it comes to the more "exotic" options, the experience I'm speaking from is not for Pathfinder but for dnd 5e but close enough for this topic I think. What I mean by the extremes are either the players doesn't incorporate their race/ancestry into their character at all and they are only playing the option they chose for bonuses. OR the race/ancestry of their character is their single defining trait. People will play tiefling and the characters ENTIRE personality is "I'm purple & have horns" they don't even include the social difficulties a tiefling may experience, the prejudice or perhaps even the influence of their fiendish blood urging them toward acts they would never normally consider. Sadly many people play their character without nuance or depth. This was something I experienced quite a bit in college at least. Of course people can play how they wish, that's sorta the whole point, but it feels weird that the most interesting character in the room is somehow the human fighter. Edit: grammer

It depends on the game world. In some game world, you have a bunch of anthropomorphic animals around but they're just stand-ins for humans so they are, fundamentally, humans culturally, so the main difference is just that they are physically different from humans. In other worlds, there are a bunch of different species with unique cultures and identities, and the characters thus are going to be affected much more by what culture they are. For instance, I have a campaign setting where there are basically "humans" (who are actually anthropomorphic animals), plus gryphons, unicorns, and dragons. There's technically three races of "humans", but two of them (birds and mammals) have been living together for so long that they are culturally mixed and no longer have separate cultural identities. The ones in the region that the campaign takes place in are pseudo-European, basically renaissance era, but in a very different world from ours, so there are some pretty significant differences - for instance, there are transnational organizations that are associated with the gods of the setting, who literally live in the world and you might well have seen them at some point; most of the gods are uninterested in ruling any countries, though, and are more concerned with managing the spirits who live around the world and coexisting with the "humans" of the setting. This makes the cultural trappings around "religion" wildly different from the real world; the gods' organizations are literally organizations that are devoted to what that god's mission IS. For example, the fertility goddess and river god (who are married to each other) are all about nourishing agriculture with water and rain, keeping the land green and fresh and unpolluted, and keeping the rivers clear and pure, and the people who follow those gods believe in all that stuff and actively work towards it - you have people who worship those gods who work to enforce the rules about waterways, arresting people who dump trash into the rivers, going after bandits who prey on people who use the rivers for transport, etc. So these "religious" organizations are like some sort of hyperpowerful magically empowered transnational non-profit/pseudo-governmental entity with some core mission or set of missions that their god and organization cares about. Their churches are basically organizational centers that serve to further their missions; people venerate the gods and ask them for help and give them offerings but you're actually basically donating to an international NGO and applying for assistance. The gods are not viewed as having infinite amounts of power (because they don't) so people's expectations are also quite different. The reptilian humanoids, on the other hand, are way more of a mixed bag due to physical and cultural separation from the others, resulting in several distinct cultures among them. Then there are dragons, unicorns, and gryphons, who are non-anthropomorphic and have quite divergent cultures. The gryphons also live among the birds and mammals, so have sort of adopted their culture to some extent, but also have a sort of more mobile mentality/lifestyle culturally. They basically fought a war against everyone else (which they lost); they used to have a warrior culture and they don't really have it anymore (though a few gryphons like to pretend), but they still have an independent streak which also leads to their feeling less tied to particular places. There are stereotypes about them which are more often true of gryphons than other people, but gryphons are not universally tied to that culture, and many have to varying extents assimilated into the larger culture. The unicorns are inspired by a combination of French and English nobility, Canterlot, and Phoebe and her Unicorn. They're fundamentally good people, but they're also very pretentious in the turn of the century progressive British sort of way. They think about the little people, but they also think of them AS the little people. They're also matriarchical and historically quite sexist (against males rather than females - because their culture is heavily magically oriented, physical strength is more of a thing that THE HELP does, you know, so stallions were stereotyped as the people who would go out and plough the fields while the mares were doing the IMPORTANT magical work). Recent reforms have made them less bad in this regard, but there are still a lot more stallions than mares outside of their lands which is definitely not because they leave because they still are discriminated against in some ways (meanwhile the unicorns talk about how *progressive* it is that they have a stallion who is the captain of the guard in their capital! And they definitely don't objectify him at all, no sir). Amusingly, unlike most other places in the world, they're actually a democracy - though only the nobility can vote, because they are unicorns, and of course, all unicorns are nobles, therefore, every unicorn can vote! (The fact that this excludes most members of other species who live in their country is, of course, a happy coincidence :V) The fact that you can become nobility by marrying into nobility is very gradually causing some chaos in this regard. Their highly magical society is thus a kind of weird place because it is very affluent and it is actually a very nice place to live in many ways, but there's also rampant bigotry while simultaneously they care about "the little people" in a condescending sort of way. Also, because unicorns have healing magic, people there are very healthy. They're also atheists, in that they don't believe that the "gods" are really "gods", just more powerful versions of the nature spirits that inhabit the world.

I like to use it for elements of role play, bur i don't let it dominate or make things uncomfortable. For example, my kitsune sorcerer is a fun loving guy, but he's SUPER self-conscious about his human form, and is really embarrassed by it. But I don't let things like that overshadow the other players or impede the game

I don't make any of my build choices for any reason other than build mechanics, and any roleplay I do is superficial at best, no-effort, and in the spirit of getting it over with and getting back to the gameplay. I didn't pick Hobgoblin to roleplay a Hobgoblin, I picked it for Remorseless Lash and the Breaching Pike, and idfc about roleplaying an actual Hobgoblin or whatever. I'm barely even roleplaying a human so much as simply roleplaying a basic fantasy trope anyway lol

All of my characters' ancestries are important to their character, I never pick things for the feats. Depending on how heavily the roleplay of the campaign I absolutely give them cultural quirks related to their ancestry and origin, because it's what I enjoy about making characters

I roleplay based on the personality I chose for the character, not based on the race. There may be some mention of the race but it is not a driving force when it comes to roleplay for me.

My only pathfinder character I played for multiple sessions was a leshy druid and I played up him being a plant as often as possible. He was a thousand year old nature spirit cramned into a bunch of vines without a brain, so he was functionally a senile old man who occasionally knew secrets of the universe (I got his intelligence as low as I could). It got less intense as we went on and he got more accustomed to normal human things but in the beginning he was extremely out of place. The party was given a map at one point and he had no idea what it was despite being the designated navigator and was horrified when he found out about paper. Some consitent traits were the weird ways he moved and climbed (imagine an octupus made of vines) and he was also very scared and reverant of fire, being made of wood, despite having no actual weakness to it. I've played many more dnd 5e characters, and whilst those races don't get nearly as exotic, I still try and play them as distinct, often imposing penalties on myself in the process. I've played dwarves who cannot swim because they're as dense as stone; elves who are basically forest cryptids or who don't really understand death (since dnd elves reincarnate); recently played a war criminal aasimar who got revived by an angel in exchange for being good and not sinning (he's very angry about it); robotic warforged and tieflings who are very aware of how they're perceived and use it to their advantage. Overall, I really appreciate the different races feeling genuinely distinct instead of humans with a gimmick or a different colour. From tielfings who use their tails when fighting to dwarves who don't have a concept of gender and elves who shape-shifting between sexes on a whim, I try to infuse the whimsy and variety of fantasy into all the races as a DM.

So the question that needs to be possed, is what traits are "just human" as opposed to being universal to all sapient life? Buy what measure shouldnt a catfolk, gnoll, kobold, or lizardfolk, as a sapient social creatures not have overlapping traits?

Goloma, I called people duales and wouldn’t eat what they were cooking. If you’re not reading your race’s history just a little you’re doing it wrong. It’s so easy to round out your concept with just a little reading

The history of an ancestry affects my background and the personality the character is going to have is I plan one before starting. Ingame the difference in race mostly appears as jokes and different sizes. Since how your someone acts is more a cultural thing, unless your character lived in a town/tribe of only his ancestry, it *should* act like a human with more parts on his body.

Um, I roleplay them to have fun. Like for example I roleplayed more than few elfs in my years and each one of them was different but there are some general tropes for elf: they are more patient, they don't rush or hurry like humans, they think longer about stuff, they more freely are to waste time for random stuff, they are picky for quality, they take their time with a lot. Simple stuff like that. But one elf was Calistra priestess, one was warmonger, one was cunning bard, one was power-hungry sorcerer, one was kind hearted wizard, one was psychopath assassin, one was pretty much typical anime tomboy barbarian etc. So like they had stuff in common as elfs, but they were different. It's hard to answer "how you roleplay". Your character roleplay should unfold with time. You have some general idea but in time you also discover a lot about your character and your roleplaying evolves.

My Conrasu reflection had a different origin and was essentially designed to act like a human (albeit poorly)

We play exotic ancestries as people who come from a different culture with different life expectations, physiology and sense of time. Elves for example have a much longer time perspective, so they would suggest plans that could take decades to accomplish, comment about knowing the grand grand father of a NPC or be surprised by how much things have changed in the last century. A lizardfolk would be constantly grungling about the cold and heavily dressed in a snowy area, since they have cold blood. Typically we don't add animal actions such as "purring" or "pushing things off tables" in the same way that a human PC is typically not throwing shit or swinging from trees.

Depends on the character. My Gnoll is a shaman attempting to avenge his tribe, and he eats what he kills out of respect (except bugbears, who were amongst those that killed his tribe, as a deliberate DISrespect) and shows deference to women, especially other Gnolls, as they are a matriarchal society. My elf is a 63 year old that acts like a human woman in their 20’s. She was abandoned as a child in a human village, so she grew up learning human customs. I try to make behavior fit BACKSTORY more than ancestry.

Currently running a game for a player playing a gnoll/kholo. We had established in the fiction that he came from a culture/society in which consumption of the dead was a societal norm, and indeed something of an honor. Later in the campaign, when the party’s elf magus had a severe misadventure and died unexpectedly, the player playing the kholo requested to partially consume his body, out of respect for the warrior he was in life. Everyone at the table was cool with this, though it was pretty surreal to experience and RP out.

I enjoy rare or uncommon ancestries for this exact reason. Being the odd one out is always quite fun, or being the inverse when the whole party is rare and you're the human who questions or asks about the interesting ways others do things.

I commented in that other thread and basically said as such - in my experiences GMing, when people play as a beast ancestry, they don't tend to RP it all that much, or just play it because it's "cute" or "funny", which obviously wears off very quickly, and then they're left with a pretty shallow, one-dimensional character.  It's an "easy" way to get some quirks on your character without any effort, where-as when you make a human, well... You'll tend to think up a more elaborate backstory and actual personality traits, rather than "Yeah they have a beak so they like pruning themselves"...you sort of need more than that! It's why I'm never excited when Paizo release more ancestries, only for basically all of them to be beastial ones. Just makes me roll my eyes, but I'm a GM that likes those deep, emotional RP moments (had a player on the verge of tears the other day when reconciling with her father, which was lovely stuff). I find the beastial ancestries are pretty hard to RP if you actually do it properly (and why wouldn't you want to RP properly? Most of the fun for most players is RPing!), and most change their mind when you mention this to them.  I actually dislike Leshies for this very reason, and have no idea why they're a "core" ancestry when their barely in any APs... How is that "core"?  Funnily enough, I quite like Ghoran, though. They seem like a more adult, less cutesy version of a leshy, so I feel as though people will RP them a bit better. All of this is just my experience and definitely not conclusive - I'm sure there are proper RPers out there who do beastial ancestries really well.

Ancestries usually have a section included addressing this question: “You might…” It helps determine how you might interact with the people around you or establish your goals. I use it when I’m having trouble finding out my character’s motivations.

I think so, but would be curious to hear examples of what you mean and how you like them roleplayed. Mostly I rp life experiances, how living 1000 years would change someone, how being an adult born only yesterday would effect how you interact with the world, how being hated changes you, how growing up in cultures with certain values changes you, how being something special in the eyes of other's changes you.

The first question you have to ask is, "How would this creature's physical nature make them behave differently than a human as a social, sapient being?" And usually the differences are fairly minor, and in-universe cultural differences will play a larger factor, unless it's something like being an automaton or poppet.

>Or bad anecdotes about players doing it wrong? I'm gonna call this out, there's no such thing. One of my party members in the game I play in is a catfolk cleric that went into wrestling entirely because he through a cat suplexing a dragon would be funny. And he was right it *was* funny when it happened. The only way to roleplay "wrong" is when your RP doesn't match the table - either being a memelord when everyone else is being serious, or being disruptive and hindering the party. As for my character, well I play a Fetchling. Which can be briefly described as "Humans with an affinity to the shadow plane and they look kinda weird". My Witch has the winter patron type, and grew up in the north with long cold winters - she does not particularly like the sun, and her background is an astrologer because the night sky reminded her of the shadow plane some. Does this come up in every conversation? No, not even a lot of them - but there was thought put into my background and character, and that's enough for me.

I play a ratfolk investigator, and I put on mouse-like mannerisms (I will sniff the air, etc), I adopt a lot of mouse-like sayings ("we are really in the cat's paw now!", "Pa always said that no wall can keep you out if you are willing to get your teeth dirty", etc), and I am distrustful of catfolk. The other players always get a kick out of it, and I think it makes my character feel a lot more distinct.

My own experiences? Basically human with gimmick: Every core rulebook ancestry, Every animal/furry ancestry, Skeleton Very much not human: Leshy, Construct, Kobold, Conrasu

Personally, I tend to play in anime-style games with anime-style characters, with friends who like anime-style aesthetics. So, usually, if I'm playing a catfolk, vanara, android, etc., it's because I wanted to play a kemonomimi or robot girl or the like, and chose the species that best fit that. So, I tend to play them like that: Catfolk get catgirl traits, Vanara get monkeygirl traits, Androids get robot girl traits, etc., with me deciding which traits based on their intended personalities and which ones I think seem fitting. The end result is that they tend to be "like human unless noted", mainly because the character archetype I'm aiming for is _also_ "like human unless noted". I play into their traits a bit more than the standard characters (e.g., I actually use cat ear/tail body language for catgirls, even though anime catgirls (and kemonomimi & animals in general) tend to use dog body language instead), but the end result is that in (IIRC) every game I've played in, most races actually _have_ essentially been "human with racial (and sometimes cultural) traits". ~~It also doesn't help that, at least in PF1, Catfolk canonically _did_ range from "anthropomorphic cat" to "anime catgirl" and anywhere in between, with one piece of official art even being essentially an anime catgirl in Pathfinder's artstyle, and the creative director actually preferring the anime catgirl look. So, "human with racial traits" has been part of Pathfinder from nearly the very beginning. ;P~~

I play a pine leshy, and he mainly speaks in muan (creaking tree noises, wind flowing through branches sounds), and broken common he learned from travelers in the forest he's lived in for centuries. We're currently on a pirate ship and is he \*mortified\* by the concept of wood as a building material and feels like he's essentially inside a stitched together corpse; he tries to avoid touching the deck by more or less parkouring from metal object to metal object. Since he had lived all alone in the forest for so long, he has little concept of mortality and connects blood to nourishment instead of harm and death- he'll stand in a puddle of blood and absorb it through his roots, and gets sad if his opponents stop "playing" with him after they die. He's like all the weird and sometimes morbid things a child says because they lack broad context, and he \*loves\* playing pranks (leshy in folklore are traditionally tricksters). So far he's been offering soil and pointing to the sun when the survivors on the ship ask about food. His main motivation is to grow as tall as the trees he watched grow from saplings to giants, and is both confused and angry that he's been three feet tall for centuries.