Are you sure he wasn't trolling you? Versatility isn't that great of an ability. You've got to sink a lot of legend points into it to make it useful. You've also got to convince another discipline to teach those talents. Also, the thing about humans is that they are adaptable and steal everyone's ideas. Dwarves are all about society, cities and being part of that. One cog in a huge machine. That means specializing not everymanning. Also, the dwarf population dominance is just in Throal. The Theran Empire is more dominated by Humans and Elves I believe. Although there are lots of ork slaves.

Don't get me wrong, versatility can be abused (and I see it happen all the time), but if you implement it as intended where you've got to find an adept willing to teach a talent to a non-discipline member, that solves much of the issues. Also, the latest edition had something called the advanced discipline mechanic where they sorta throw all the 1st through 3rd circle talents together and you get to pick which ones you want. That SERIOUSLY eroded the usefulness of versatility.

I'm not entirely sure about the logic behind an extra recovery test though.

OK, thought just came to me. Versatility is no longer a talent but a racial ability. Versatility allows humans to learn SKILLS with the legend point costs of talents. Normally, skills cost significantly more in legend points. Note that some talents are learnable as skills but the really abusable ones aren't (like thread weaving for all 4 types of spellcasting). It still takes the same training and practice time for regular skills, but the legend point cost is lower. This gives a significant advantage to mundane humans over other races, but mundanes are going to be NPC's so Legend Points are pretty much arbitrary in that respect.

I know he was deadly serious, the game imploded shortly after over issues like this.

I've never been in a game with any humans in it, so I have no first hand experience of how Versatility runs in practice. Then again I've only played in two games and run one.

I'm willing to switch back if that seems better to the players.

I have a lot more reading to do before I can make a firm decision, but so far I'm attracted to the little guys with the wings and the big rock people. I want to play a character that is very different to my other current PC, but I don't know enough yet to decide. I'll get back to you.

I'll expand the write up of both those races.

Obsidimen have issues with travel. They don't like not having earth beneath their feet. So boats and airships are generally out barring a B.A. Barracus A-Team hijinks.

Windlings are pretty mobile though. If you pluck their wings off, they'll fit into a scroll case

I was initially wanting to play a warrior, but they seem a little eastern for my taste in this game. I'm still looking at my options. I'm pretty sure I'm going to play a human, though.

Ok,
though for Eastern there's also a Monk class I haven't included yet, brought by visitors from Cathay.

There are a bunch of Disciplines that fall under the Fighter umbrella.

Another human is fine, just so long as you know that humans are not the majority race in the setting. The typical person is most likely a dwarf (almost twice as likely) so if your idea is the be "ordinary" in the sense that playing a human normally is in most games, play a dwarf.

With two humans I'd definitely need to look at Versatility (the default ability given to Humans to learn magical talents from other disciplines)

The population breakdown is:

Race % of Population
Dwarf 29
Ork 19
Human 15
Troll 12
Elf 10
T'skrang 8
Undead 5
Obsidiman 1
Windling 1

I definitely want to be a human, yeah.

And I meant that the warrior class was too Eastern, not that it was not Eastern enough. I don't want to play a philosopher with different sword styles and all that. Nothing against it - it's just not where my heart is at the moment.

Thief looks pretty good. As do several other options.

I got that, I just meant that the other Discipline makes the Warrior look less Eastern.

Thief is good, as are a lot of the others.

I'll expand the write up on the human lineages so you can see if one calls to you.

Swordmaster is actually more of the 'fighter' concept while the Warrior is closer to the 'monk'.

I got into a fierce debate with someone on the old Earthdawn forums about the nature of The Sword. The axe, the hammer, the knife, all of those have uses as tools. The Sword is purely a weapon. It serves no purpose save for spilling blood. That is a rather powerful concept there.

If you want to go dark and maybe a little emo if not harsh, go Vorst. Or go generic human, maybe from Travar where they have competitions.