Tiefling, Dragonborn : have they gained traction ?

[Barastrondo]

If you start dissing gas spores or gorbels, Ethan, you're dead to me.

The dirtiest trick my cousin ever pulled in the course of DMing was make a gas spore laugh at us. Like, turn at us and chuckle. I mean, come on. That was just rude.

I've never used a gorbel, but now I'm tempted just as an intellectual exercise. I have an ugly craving to set them up like a Puzzle Bobble (Bust-a-Move) level and see if the players can pick out the right one to target to start the good chain reaction and not the bad one.

(Oh god now I am a step closer to using prinnies in D&D...)

Arguably the BECMI and AD&D ones are a bit different (e.g. no mind flayers, half orcs or flumphs in BECMI), and got recombined to an extent with 3E. 4E rewrites a lot of assumptions about the D&D universe and it's inhabitants, such that it's probably the most radical departure from the traditional milieu yet. The non-optional PC races and their fluff, plus myriad other devils in details and disconnects are enough of a change that I don't see it as a continuation of the old implied setting anymore.

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?

It has, but no thoul was ever a core PC race, assumed by default to be played in every campaign. PC races get a massive amount of screentime, whereas a thoul will generally last rounds, and the campaign moves on. Thouls are also easy to "ban" - as DM you simply choose not to use them (although such a move would be very thoulish, IMO).

Well, in my experience, you could get the exact same disconnect with gnomes. In the dawn times before Dragonlance or World of Warcraft, the only previous experience one could be expected to have with gnomes was lawn ornaments or the Gnomes art book, and the animated movie based on said book. There was really no other reason to see them — gut reaction only — as something other than silly little people with red hats beloved by children and old ladies. If you asked the prepubescent me of the time, I would have said I had no idea why they were considered possibilities for heroic sword-and-sorcery or high fantasy adventurers. And they're still controversial.

But having seen what people have done with gnomes since, I can't help but think that the problem with dragonborn is similar. They pose a stumbling block to some, seem like a good fit to others, and they react well to reskinning. They can also, of course, be banned — but I don't think that 4e is at all unworthy for including them as an option.

If anything, I think it's neat to have a core race that looks considerably more inhuman, because that opens up thoughts about not just what races you can play, but what you can do with race as a mechanic.

 

[Mallus]

There is nothing wrong with a kitchen sink setting, as long as it's done right. Fading Suns is a kitchen sink setting, and it's awesome. So is Shadowrun. And Eberron is pretty cool, too.

So are the World of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. D&D has a long tradition of kitchen-sink settings. You could argue D&D invented them (or, rather, they were invented for D&D).

 

[Sammael]

If you need to ask whether something has gained traction, it hasn't.

 

[Mallus]

In the dawn times before Dragonlance or World of Warcraft, the only previous experience one could be expected to have with gnomes was lawn ornaments...

They should have remained lawn ornaments!

Ahem, anyway...

... my group has no problem with dragon-men or devil-men. They fit our collective notion of D&D just fine. Our current campaign has a smattering of important Tiefling NPC's and one PC Dragonborn (mine).

Actually, we'll probably never have another Dragonborn PC after the way I characterized the race...

 

[wedgeski]

This thread was never going anywhere but downhill from the start, but from my point of view, whatever gets a player excited is what goes in the game. Dragonborn and tieflings have featured heavily as PC's and as backstory NPC's, so they seem alright in my book. Campaign. Whatever.

 

[Dragonbait]

skipping all the drek in the middle.

Yes, they have traction. Tieflings already did (although their concept seemed to dissapear for a while during 3E, but returned with 3.5E in all the groups I played in).

Dragonborn definitely have traction now in every group I play in, too.

I'm running a FR campaign and find it harder to delineate between Eladrin and Elves than dealing with Dragonborn and Tieflings, seeing how the setting still refers to them all as Elves (Sun, Moon, Wild, Wood, and so on).

 

[alleynbard]

They should have remained lawn ornaments!

Poor gnomes. Gnome fans never get any love.

I understand, gnomes can be played horribly. And if you don't like trickster races, they can get very annoying. Much like kender. Actually, even as a gnome fan I rather hate the kender. And gully dwarves are right out.

 

[Mallus]

Poor gnomes. Gnome fans never get any love.

I'm trying to get over my irrational prejudice against gnomes. I put them in our 4e homebrew!

(I mean, we have devil-men, dragon-men, and robots... why not the little, red-capped bastards too?)

 

[alleynbard]

Goodman have a similar book coming out for tieflings this spring, so I guess we will know soonish.

Yep! And I couldn't be happier. The Dragonborn book rocked. It really helped my dragonborn player develop an interesting and exciting background. I just told him "assume everything you read in here is true, I will integrate it somehow" and so far it has been successful.

 

[alleynbard]

I'm trying to get over my irrational prejudice against gnomes. I put them in our 4e homebrew!

(I mean, we have devil-men, dragon-men, and robots... why not the little, red-capped bastards too?)

Thank you. Of course, just remember not all gnomes wear red caps, just the ones who dip their caps in the blood of their slain victims.

Redcap - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia