Dragonborn: Boobs or No Boobs?

[diaglo]

I voted no boobs for the dragonborn. I've never seen boobs on a dragon (which they are evidently closely tied to) or any other reptilian D&D creature.

It just doesn't make sense.

What would make sense IMO might be to make

a) dragonborn females larger
b) dragonborn males more colourful.

Cheers

i approve of this message.

 

[Stormtalon]

I, for one, welcome our new lacto-reptilian overlords!

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

There is something about this I really like. I have been doing some reading reading on mating and this makes some sense. Isn't his found amongst some species of birds? I might be way off with this...

Sexual size dimorphism is determined mostly by the mating system of the organism in question. The more male-male competition there is, the more likely that the males will be larger than females. If additional eggs will significantly increase a female's chances of reproductive success, she's more likely to be larger than the male, just so she can contain more eggs. This is one of the reasons that female mammals are not usually larger than males: the requirement for post-natal care puts an upper limit on the number of offspring that is not present in most non-mammalian species, so they can't use the "make lots of low-quality babies, hope some survive" strategy that often occurs in species with no parental care. Therefore, there's little advantage in being larger than males, since the energy spent growing bigger could be put into making higher-quality babies which are more likely to survive.

So yes, it's found in some birds and reptiles, but it's hard to generalize about things like mating systems and dimorphisms. Quite often males are larger because being larger has advantages for males that aren't present for females.

 

[Arcadio]

Boobed dragonborn bring us that much closer to humans and dragonborn mating, which brings us that much closer to half-dragonborn. And if a race can't produce offspring with humans, does it really belong in the PHB?

 

[Piratecat]

And not hexapods and we're back to reptiles. Your side trip to dragonland was pretty meaningless, wasn't it?
...
Ah. I didn't realize you were arguing for the sake of being argumentative. 'WotC can do whatever they want because it isn't real' is a circular argument that doesn't lead anywhere.
They could make all the monsters Neo-pets or Pokemon if they really wanted to.

Voss, if you can't be polite, don't post. Hostility isn't appropriate.

 

[Arnwyn]

I have no idea how a question with the options of "Yes to boobs" and "No to boobs" could go in any way other than one direction.

 

[Drowbane]

Dragons aren't reptiles.

nor are they mammals.

 

[Driddle]

In real life, I am pro-boob.

That should be put on a T-shirt.

 

[Sadrik]

I'm willing to see medusae as more "mythological human-based creature" than reptile. The only thing that makes them snaky is their hair, which, along with their petrifying appearance, could as easily be the result of their divine curse. As for nagas: No, I don't think they do have breasts. None of the ones I've seen in D&D art do, anyway.

Anyway, point is that there are already *plenty* of human-like races with sufficiently plausible anatomies to get the cheesecake fans salivating. I'd rather see something like a dragonborn look demonstrably reptilian, maybe even more T-Rex like (minus the tiny arms).

Marilith.

 

[James Heard]

What is the purpose of reading visually a monster's gender?

Selling books, not having to send artwork back because artists like boobs and tend to draw them any chance they get? I'm just being practical, if they don't have boobs then you're making artwork more complex and unless you have some sort of other visual grab that gets firmly established so thoroughly that it's concrete in the minds of your artists "no boobs" will likely be forgotten anyways in favor of "garments that suggest boobs" and "plates that suggest cleavage" and the like. You could probably count on whatever you ask for lasting through a few books, and if the creatures don't have a lot of staying power then that's probably enough. If they're featured prominently in a book though, with lots of variations of the monster then you're going to eventually hit the point where sexual characteristics like boobs start popping up anyways. If you're going to use them heavily then why fight it? Better to try to downplay it and keep the boobs from looking like they belong on Wonder Woman.