Tiefling, Dragonborn : have they gained traction ?

[Jürgen Hubert]

Poor gnomes. Gnome fans never get any love.

Hey, I do love the little buggers!

Repeat after me: "There is no such thing as a Gnomish World Conspiracy."

 

[Intense_Interest]

Too early to tell. All we can say with certainty is that gnomes have zero traction.

Well you can't blame the poor Gnome for that- it isn't their fault the bottom of their boots is porcelain.

 

[AllisterH]

I personally blame TSR for the lack of traction with gnomes.

Visual design not encouraging for the target age group to play one. CHECK.
Campaign worlds that use gnomes primarily as jokes. CHECK
Rest of the campaign worlds simply eliminate gnomes. CHECK

Yeah, yet we're surprised that gnomes have no traction, why?

 

[JeffB]

Well, remember that from the perspective of someone who started with BECMI (or really just BE), an equally radical departure from the implied setting came when we picked up AD&D for the first time. Good and evil as alignments? Race and class tracked separately? Blue dragons and white dragons are evil now? (A particularly harsh blow to those of us who liked having them as potential allies.) Half-orcs? Gnomes?

*somewhat tangential*

Exactly- This is something that is very fundamental to the differences between 4E and 3E as a whole.

3E walked that hardcore AD&D milleau line- really holding to those original Literary influences that Gary (and many others, including myself) held as "sacred". Nearly everything about the way the world works has been defined. "Cosmology? heres "the Great wheel" and a list of 56 Gods and what their priests can and cannot do, what they wear, what they eat on the second Tuesday of each month, and detail after detail, after detail. It's your game, but we have provided 12 different campaign worlds that all revolve around these basic premises and everything willl be designed with this in mind".

4E is very much the Little Brown Book/Moldvay/Cook/Marsh B/X D&D mindset- where AD&D-isms, and the literary traditions are not as ingrained nor adhered to in the "world" and rule-set. Nearly everything about the way the world works is undefined. "Cosmology? uhm..well you can have Gods...or not... you can define it yourself or use this very basic outline we have provided. Or maybe you want to uses the Norse Mythos? or maybe adventurers who ascended to Godhood? It's your game, kid: Knock yourself out"

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I'm not a huge fan of dragonborn myself, but that's mostly because I think they don't need to really exist. What needs to exist is robust rules for playing actual dragons alongside other PC's, since that what people actually want. They don't want to be a little dragon knock-off, they want to be a dragon. In any game where people can play a dragon, dragonborn are redundant and useless.

I disagree, both the players who have played Dragonborn in my games have done so for different reasons. One actually liked the "girl with big boobs and spiky, scaly skin who can breathe fire" idea and the other wanted to play the "Proud, Honorable, Scaly man from a Warrior Culture"

And for whatever its worth, I allow both 4E version Tieflings (descendants of human nobles who bargained with demons and who had a large empire in the past) and the 2nd Ed version "Planetouched" (People with assorted planar blood in them and strange, random characteristics)

Both versions have their fans and I try to accommodate them both

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Hmm...yeah, it seems that the dragonoid concept certainly has traction...

....of course dragonborn are different....but perhaps my dislike of them comes solely from the name and the look. I probably would have no problem with them, even their existing 4e backstory, if I thought the name or the look were appealing in any way.

The "fiendish" concept also has traction, though not every fiendish creature is a 4e tiefling, either.

So I guess the answer to the OP is more along the lines of: "Those things have ALWAYS had traction, this is just the most recent form of them," rather than "Dragonborn are dumb."

I think this puts it pretty well for me.

The 4e ideas have always had traction, but I think the 4e renditions of them perhaps ironically have less traction then they have before. From what I've seen, tieflings are much more popular when I use a variant of the 2e version (Ask "Ok, so you're part demon. How does this SHOW on your character?" instead of telling them), and dragonborn are a lot more popular when I describe them as being more dragon then man (lose the breasts and snouts, describe them more as humanoid dragons. I've found the draconian model/artwork works a hell of a lot better then the 4e dragonborn one. Draconian by Jason Engle - Fantasy art galleries at Epilogue.net - Fantasy and Sci-fi at their best is a good illustration of how I picture and describe them)

That said, Eladrin are rather popular, though I suspect it's because players can finally put the dwarf and elf variant glut to rest. Or rather, Eladrin are very UNpopular, but well liked because of it, because now, to quote others, "Everything I hated about elves was removed and put into one race, so now I can like the good about elves and hate the bad in a much more convinent manner!"

 

[rounser]

4E is very much the Little Brown Book/Moldvay/Cook/Marsh B/X D&D mindset- where AD&D-isms, and the literary traditions are not as ingrained nor adhered to in the "world" and rule-set.

Not true. I see the word "optional" popping up all the time in the RC, and this is the antithesis of 4E. I know you're wanting to christen 4E with legitimacy borrowed from earlier editions, but it's just not there.

Not okay. Don't tell people what they do or don't think. ~ PCat

 

[Mallus]

I see the word "optional" popping up all the time in the RC, and this is the antithesis of 4E.

Every race and class is optional, even in 4e.

I know you're wanting to christen 4E with legitimacy borrowed from earlier editions, but it's just not there.

If the new rules remind someone of the old rules, why not simply accept that at face value?

 

[evilbob]

All the best points have already been made. But they're a little spread out over the course of 10 pages, so here's a good summary of what I think is an excellent response to the OP.

Older players love the tropes, but newer players are ever so slightly a group of culture aliens. So they look at halflings, and see "people who are short like children." Ok. And dwarves? "People who are short and also fat." And half elves? "People who are.... umm...." Halflings and Dwarves have cultures, sure, but those cultures are largely just copies of existing human cultures, meaning that its trivially easy for someone to create a human PC who's stolen the Halfling or Dwarf cultural shtick. And Half Elves are just... a bag full of empty.

Meanwhile Tieflings and Dragonborn are interesting and unique. Tieflings have an obvious hook (humans except demon touched) and they have physical differences on an entirely different scale from "really short" or "short and also fat." Dragonborn also have an obvious hook and physical differentiation that stops them from being "humans but kinda not."

What needs to exist is robust rules for playing actual dragons alongside other PC's, since that what people actually want. They don't want to be a little dragon knock-off, they want to be a dragon. In any game where people can play a dragon, dragonborn are redundant and useless.

Also, I really think their look is tremendously unappealing. I see they are spikey lizard-men without tails, but that aesthetic isn't something I want for any of my characters (or most of my PC's). I'd rather have Kobolds as a PC race.

The fact is, some people just really flipping love dragons and demons, and will do incredible backflips to play them or something like them. Also, I play with a lot of really casual players, and there's something about the tiefling and dragonborn that really trips their triggers. "I can be a half-dragon? I can be a freaking devil! Awesome!"

 

[Shemeska]

Every race and class is optional, even in 4e.

Anything is optional in your own home games, but not for official setting support in 4e where so far every player centric element in the default core has been inserted wholescale into previously distinct settings (see the retconning of 4e Eladrin into FR, the destruction of portions of FR in order to insert a nation of dragonborn, etc).