Geas

I think that if you don't understand what you're getting into you can mess up and ruin alot of time. I'm making generalizations that'd I'd have considered useful. There's always exceptions.

First, character's and how they "should" be used are based on how they can improve their stats. This is my summary:

Strength: Dmg given from melee combat
Dexterity: For thief skills
Agility: The amount of chances to hit over a period of time
Constitution: The amount of hp you have
Intelligence: For reading and writing/ casting skills and mana
Wisdom: helps with learning/ ability to use high level miracles
Discipline: performing in battle while hurting, and/or bleeding.

So,
Halflings: Good with dexterity and agility. Bad with constitution. Great if you want to make a light armoured thief. Not so great as a warrior. Bad if you want an armoured tank. Halflings have been proven excellent archers.

Elf: Good agility, Bad Constitution. Good intelligence and wisdom.
Great if you want a "scholar" or "mage" (Mage is a very hard course with little fighting benefits now). Great if you want a light armoured warrior that can sneak around hidden (like a "scout") With wisdom and int elves are Good as a mage/cleric or caster. They are NOT lord of the rings elves. They are weaklings and not good as tanks.
*elves can also become darkelves if they're evil* (cool?)

Half-elf: Middle of the range. Look at human and elf and you can be either.

Human: Decent Everything. Can be pretty much whatever IF you allocate your experience properly. Their constitution is good, agility is good, and strength is good so these make great warriors as well as casters if trained right. I SUGGEST a human to start off with, but make sure you have an idea about the direction your character will head towards (ie heavy armoured tank, light armoured warrior, philosopher)

Dwarf: Good strength, decent agility, Great constitution. Create a dwarf if you don't want to rest alot in between fights and take a good amount of damage. Don't be a dwarf thief or scout. Be a tank and a clerical caster.

Tshahark: Great strength. Great constitution. bad agility and intelligence and wisdom. They are warriors that talk funny and are suppose to be stupid. Plan on a brute warrior with a tshahark, not a politician or scholar.

Also, dwarves and elves can see in the dark, and half-elves can sort of. Not being able to see in the dark doesn't cause much problems because lamps are easy to use and come by.

--RP wise--
Think about how you would like to rp your character:
Sun came up with some good points:

Tshahark: Easy to RP because of their limited intelligence. There's always a simple response if you do not come up with anything better. They have a special position in the world since they are magically created by the humans, who later turned against them. That opens up for some straight-forward RP, and one will also not have a problem dying too often.

Half-elf: I think this might be an interesting pick for RP, but the only reason to play them is to do just racial RP, IMHO.

Dwarf: Somewhat difficult to play well if you want to go away from the sterotype. Easy if you don't, but I always felt that you too easily stick in the sterotype. In either case, I think it does have some unexplored avenues which noone ever took before, so I think you can do much original stuff with them.

Halfling: Somewhat difficult to RP due to their "lack of origin"/culture. I like playing them because they are weak and that forces you to be different and find new solutions, and it also makes combat more interesting.

Human: Easy to relate to (should be for most of us....) and therefore the racial aspects are easy to play. The cultural inheritance is not too hard to grasp and play out, and the race offers good long-term options. It's very free, still you have almost most history dedicated to this race, so you get most of two worlds. Probably the easiest race to play.

Elf: Most difficult to RP because of their rich culture, there are always many factors to consider and it requires much patience, effort, eloquance, good english/grammar, etc. At the same time one of them highest potential to make a deep an interesting character.

What delmon says is pretty true, certain races are best at certain things.

But in my opinion, exceptions to the generalizations are sometimes some of the best characters

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure 'help <race>' gives pretty general information about this. Besides that, some things should be common sense with the more fantasy-typical chars (IE, halflings and platemail don't mix).

And ultimately, unless you're planning to make an optimized pvp character or something, I'm not sure how stats would make or 'ruin' a character.

Yes it was clear to me after reading Delmons post that he wrote it with a moreso PvP mind set. When you are roleplaying, stats don't/shouldn't matter a great deal, unless you are roleplaying a hulking muscle man or a super intelligent uber mage.

Then I dare say it's up to the player and not the mud to tell you how to make the best xxx character.

You dare say? Heh, I wasn't aware you were suddenly Sherlock Holmes.

Now I'll take them, if you do'nt mind =)

Tshahark: Easy to RP because of their limited intelligence. There's always a simple response if you do not come up with anything better. They have a special position in the world since they are magically created by the humans, who later turned against them. That opens up for some straight-forward RP, and one will also not have a problem dying too often.

Half-elf: I think this might be an interesting pick for RP, but the only reason to play them is to do just racial RP, IMHO.

Dwarf: Somewhat difficult to play well if you want to go away from the sterotype. Easy if you don't, but I always felt that you too easily stick in the sterotype. In either case, I think it does have some unexplored avenues which noone ever took before, so I think you can do much original stuff with them.

Halfling: Somewhat difficult to RP due to their "lack of origin"/culture. I like playing them because they are weak and that forces you to be different and find new solutions, and it also makes combat more interesting.

Human: Easy to relate to (should be for most of us....) and therefore the racial aspects are easy to play. The cultural inheritance is not too hard to grasp and play out, and the race offers good long-term options. It's very free, still you have almost most history dedicated to this race, so you get most of two worlds. Probably the easiest race to play.

Elf: Most difficult to RP because of their rich culture, there are always many factors to consider and it requires much patience, effort, eloquance, good english/grammar, etc. At the same time one of them highest potential to make a deep an interesting character.

"I dare say" I explained why I posted:

I'm making generalizations that I would have considered useful.

yes, I. So people like me, not everyone.
Plus, what I've said is common knowledge for the player that has played for over 6 months

I'll keep adding to the original post what I consider useful information for newbies that comes up.

Dwarves may not be halflings and I don't have chars of a different race with that skill at 100, but I find dwarves can sneak just fine.

Ogres don't count.

I have an ogre with sneak 100, no one ever saw him, so yes, they are sneaky

You don't know this yet...

But that tree in the center of Arborea park is my Giant-in-disguise with Hide lvl 100.

Deleted

bumped

Someone make a newbie guids to staying alive. I cant type enough to write one

If someone writes it, I'd stress the importance of sneak, hide, look and scout if your character is one that could and would utilize all of them. Just sneak and hide alone saved my newbie butt a countless times.

Should the guide be placed here?

If so I think the following should be mentioned...
(Adding to what Delia has)

-Hide, sneak training. Quite useful, especially in doing a few quests. If you aren't using light armours for sneaking, heavier armours would be warranted for the protection you lose not being in the shadows.
-Scout. Basically very important to see what is in the next room. Usually the difference between life and death and used to make important descisions about whether to press on, or fall back.
-Focus on training one weapon at a time. The more you try to master the more difficult it becomes. Other skills like armours and specials usually are alright to improve no matter how many you choose to train.
-Don't bite off more than you can chew, and have a clear escape route where possible. If you know you can take one orc and get hurt a little, probably taking on 3 or 4 isn't the best idea. Know what tends to chase you and what tends to stand it's ground.
-Try to think up ways to power up your character. Generally things are alot harder when you fight using only low skills. Strategy will always make the difference. Most characters IG will help you with this if you ask and are friendly to eachother.
-And of course, try not to piss off people that are way way more powerful than you. It'll hurt. Or it will not hurt, and you will suffer instant death.