D&D 5E What is the appeal of the weird fantasy races?

[Crit]

That assumes that fiends are central to the campaign. They rarely are in my campaigns (although I do use their stats and change the fluff).

Besides, that could still be handled by a background feature. I had a human PC that had been promised to dark forces by his father for example.

It doesn't matter to me if you want to play a tiefling and you're DM agrees. I'm just saying that there is nothing particularly unique about a tiefling from an RP standpoint. Mechanically they have some nice features.

I was just using the centrality of Fiends in that example as an example of how Tiefling's can be the most attuned to a certain topic.

And I don't think it would be. The implication of a Tiefling is that their demonic heritage is so relevant to their identity that it warrants calling them a different race. Any other race, with just one member with a "demonic" background, is operating under different RP context. If nothing else, a Tiefling doesn't have a practical racial connection to anything other than their demonic heritage, unlike the Human PC you mentioned. That Human is not the same as a Tiefling because they weren't innately a fiend in the same way a literal devil-spawn would be, and the ramifications of that can be important RP wise. Sure, you can take a dwarf and make them a super-duper exile for their fiendishness and appearance, but at that point, you just made a Tiefling with dwarf stats because you stripped away all of the dwarf-ness. So why bother with a rough "replica" when you can just play what you're shooting for?

Combine all of that RP with culture, with appearance, with tropes, with mechanics and with plot, then the Tiefling is not something that can be replicated one-for-one elsewhere.

I maintain, Tiefling offers its own unique RP, if you are looking to find it. Same as any other race-- you can roughly remake those tropes with someone else, but that assembly will mean different things under different contexts. I'm not much of a Tiefling fan, not more so than the other races on average, but I can see the merit in playing them. Everything offers something in some capacity.

Wispling = Halfling Planetouched.
Maeluth = Dwarf Planetouched.
Tiefling = Human Planetouched.

Fiend Folio, 3ed (?)

Ok. Should we not also speak about 4th and the current edition? Have things changed?

Which gets back to is the point of tieflings to be so clearly, openly, distinctly 'other' and if so, do they stand out to the point of being 'weird' for a setting and potentially detrimental from the POV of the DM.

That sounds like something that depends more on how the DM handles the material.

Again, I'm all for Tieflings, at least the pre 4e ones, but I do not see them as (outside of mechanics) doing anything really that cannot be RP by another race, UNLESS they depend on looking wildly different, aka the 4e look. They are fundamentally planetouched humans.

Regardless of if they're ancestrally plane-touched humans or not, how is this supposed to affect the RP merit of them, with the infernal heritage and whatnot? If there's a distinction to be made at all in how we talk about human, plane touched or not, then surely that distinction can be made important in some stories, right?

Essentially: If they must be so distinctly other, then yes they are 'weird'. I personally do not believe that needs to be case, but that is because I refuse to accept 4e visual representation, and the Asmodeus lore change in my head canon and so for me, Tieflings are not 'required' to play the tropes listed as arguments for their inclusion. It can be done in another race, with a different back story, unless.

1. You need the mechanics of a Tiefling.
2. You want the horns.
3. You specifically are playing within the FR setting within the regions explicitly defined within the Tiefling lore of that period.

Something I said above was that Tieflings (viewed as another race, as they are) are identified solely based on their demonic attributes, as there is no larger body they are considered a part of. As in, no longer human. Tiefling is now being treated as if it were its own thing by the player base. Tiefling IS required for certain big-picture story components, regardless of their other-ness in the setting.
On that note, if Tiefling is only the way you say it is because you are only following specific parts of the lore you want to, then why is your position credible? Why does that 3-point conclusion matter if it's based on an interpretation of the story that snubs other Tiefling characteristics which may make them distinct?

I also don't like your point 3. It matters if the DM's story treats it like it matters, regardless of setting and circumstance. As with all player characteristics. And even then, "necessity" isn't a good bar- if it's a significant "artistic" choice, then that's motive enough. As me and others have said, the tropes are put together in a different light under one race compared to the others, as with everything. A bearded dwarf stonemason axe-wielding barbarian is (what some would call) "cliche" while a bearded High Elf stonemason etc. etc. is "an elf trying to be a dwarf," or "twisting the tropes," and so on. Same tropes, but not the same result, because of how those tropes are being used.

 

[Oofta]

I was just using the centrality of Fiends in that example as an example of how Tiefling's can be the most attuned to a certain topic.

And I don't think it would be. The implication of a Tiefling is that their demonic heritage is so relevant to their identity that it warrants calling them a different race. Any other race, with just one member with a "demonic" background, is operating under different RP context. If nothing else, a Tiefling doesn't have a practical racial connection to anything other than their demonic heritage, unlike the Human PC you mentioned. That Human is not the same as a Tiefling because they weren't innately a fiend in the same way a literal devil-spawn would be, and the ramifications of that can be important RP wise. Sure, you can take a dwarf and make them a super-duper exile for their fiendishness and appearance, but at that point, you just made a Tiefling with dwarf stats because you stripped away all of the dwarf-ness. So why bother with a rough "replica" when you can just play what you're shooting for?

Combine all of that RP with culture, with appearance, with tropes, with mechanics and with plot, then the Tiefling is not something that can be replicated one-for-one elsewhere.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. While you may not get exactly 1-to-1, it will be so close as to not matter significantly IMHO. If you want to play a tiefling and the DM is okay with it, have a blast.

 

[Scribe]

The implication of a Tiefling is that their demonic heritage is so relevant to their identity that it warrants calling them a different race. Any other race, with just one member with a "demonic" background, is operating under different RP context. If nothing else, a Tiefling doesn't have a practical racial connection to anything other than their demonic heritage, unlike the Human PC you mentioned.

I appreciate what you are saying, but this is the problem I have.

Tiefling was a thing. Other versions of that thing existed for other races.

They have now been pushed so far into being 'other', through 4e changes, that they no longer (if played straight as we have discussed) can be anything but that 'other'.

Thats my problem. It irrevocably (not really, see SCAG Variant) changed what Tiefling was, and didnt add, but restricted.

"Any other race, with just one member with a "demonic" background, is operating under different RP context."

This was Tiefling, as well. Its not longer an additional aspect, but the DEFINING aspect.

Not sure if that makes sense, but you captured really my main issue with the 4e tiefling. Its less than it used to be, by going so all in. Thankfully, we can all take what we like or dont like and change it, but I hope I'm at least making sense in what I'm saying.

 

[FrozenNorth]

But what impact does devilish heritage really have? People have stated that it's "unfair" to have prejudice against their PCs. So what does that leave? Looking funny? Well, you look funny because of the horns. An excuse to be emo? I mean, your PC concept may fit tiefling well, that doesn't mean it couldn't be done using a variety of races.

So if you take personality, goals, attitudes away, it comes back to ... what? I don't have a problem if someone wants to play a tiefling in settings where they're allowed, but anyone saying they can't play the character they want if tieflings are not allowed seems like overkill and ignoring that they can get 99% of the way there.

No, it is unfair to subject a player or their character to prejudice without their consent. If the player specifically asks for a character for whom being shunned is major part of the backstory, as I DM, I am happy to oblige.

 

[Minigiant]

I think the whole point is the Tieflings.

Pre-4e Tieflings were just plantouched humans.
In 4e and 5e, Tieflings are a whole nother race. They are more like Half elves and Half Orcs. Their bodiesand minds are neither human nor fiend but some sort of mixture.

Ifyou want to play up that your dad/mom/memaw/pepaw is 100% evil, beyond redemption, but still loves you and buys you birthday presents.You gotta be a Tiefling.

If you want to have bouts of uncontrollable fiendish wickedness or mental disorder. You gotta be a Tiefling.

If you want to self reliant and careful because everyone sees you as a potential or possible spy or agent for the Lower Planes whether you like it or not, You gotta be a Tiefling.

If you want to constantly tempted or tested by fiends in their bids to swell their ranks just because of your looks and blood. You gotta be a Tiefling.

Tieflings are not just altered humans anymore, for the good and bad it does to RP.

 

[FrozenNorth]

That assumes that fiends are central to the campaign. They rarely are in my campaigns (although I do use their stats and change the fluff).

Besides, that could still be handled by a background feature. I had a human PC that had been promised to dark forces by his father for example.

It doesn't matter to me if you want to play a tiefling and you're DM agrees. I'm just saying that there is nothing particularly unique about a tiefling from an RP standpoint. Mechanically they have some nice features.

Of course there is. If I come up with a backstory for my character, the elements of that backstory are unique to that character, including the race.

The DM telling me that actually, that character can be replaced with a human and it is virtually the same "from an RP standpoint" is not only wrong, he is acting in a pretty condescending manner.

If the character is the offspring of a succubus, who abandoned them at birth, and returned on their 18th birthday, flew them up to a high mountain and whispered in their ear "all these things I will give to you if you kneel and worship me", saying "yeah, you could totally do that with a human" is just substituting your own opinion for that of your player over one of the few things things in the game the player has control, and the one thing in the game the player definitely knows better than you do.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

No, it is unfair to subject a player or their character to prejudice without their consent. If the player specifically asks for a character for whom being shunned is major part of the backstory, as I DM, I am happy to oblige.

I agree. If they think it will be fun/enlightening to play a societal outcast that is treated unfairly, I will gladly allow them to play any other official race (following my normal rules). A player wants to play a Vulek Vezyi (Vezyi - Undead-Touched race created by Vecna | Vulek - a Vezyi cast out of their society and hunted down by assassins) character on the Material Plane in my homebrew world? Okay. People will stare at you and think you're going to sacrifice them to Vecna, as that's what the Vezyi society does. Good luck to that character living in a world that they literally have no place of refuge in.

I am not going to restrain the player's right to choose hardship. I will make sure that they are fully aware of the in-game consequences of being that character, but I will not stop them from playing it. I will let the player be a Krakenspawn (Simic Hybrid) in Theros, or a Drow in the Forgotten Realms/Ravnica/Wildemount, but they have to be aware that they will not be treated kindly by society, and they need to be prepared and willing to deal with those consequences.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, if you want to be absolutely reductionist, you can do that with all races (including humans). ¯\(ツ)/¯

That's kind of my feeling on it. I mean, there are absolutely games where you can custom-build a personal background template that has whatever traits you want and then come up with whatever justification for that particular collection--but D&D derivatives are not, for the most part, those games. If things like the combination of mechanical bits, visual bits and presumed background bits are not sufficient justification for separate races, nothing much is or likely can be.

 

[Maxperson]

I am utterly flabbergasted by this continued refusal to take responsibility for your own communication.

Because it's not my responsibility. I'm not going to own your willful misperceptions.

Look, if you were in a thread where that phrase had never come up, and it hadn't been used negatively, and your first usage of it was meant to be positive, then I'd have some sympathy for this position.

The term had been used pejoratively in this thread, repeatedly, and it is a term used perjoratively in this ENWorld community, repeatedly. And the only reason we are debating this, is because after @Hussar said that the saw the term negatively, because it was used negatively in this forum and this thread, repeatedly, @Scott Christian started getting bitter about how he didn't mean it negatively and that it shouldn't be taken negatively, and it isn't his fault Hussar is refusing to see the other side.

It's the job of the reader to avoid applying arguments that others have made to someone new. It's sloppy and inappropriate. It doesn't matter if 10 people have used it negatively. If I come here and use it in a different manner, it's the reader's responsibility to determine if I am using it in a positive or negative manner. I'm not responsible for their biases and misperceptions.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Replace "hunts fellow dwarves" with "followers of the evil cult in which they were raised". Add in that the cult is fairly well known for the prominent tattoos they bear and that the PC has said tattoos.

Doesn't work. The character was abandoned by their succubus mother as birth and raised by a foster family. The foster family suffered greatly because of their humane decision to attempt to raise the child to the light.

At 18, the succubus returned, flew them up to a high mountain and whispered in their ear "all these things I will give to you if you kneel and worship me".