WotC's Yuan-Ti vs. Your Yuan-Ti

[frankthedm]

Anyone else notice how badly they biased the Poll for the aquatic humaniods?

If they were good enough for Gary Gygax, they're good enough for me! Put them in the core game!

I love aquatic monsters, but namedropping Gygax is going to skew the data.

 

[Stormonu]

Anyone else notice how badly they biased the Poll for the aquatic humaniods? I love aquatic monsters, but namedropping Gygax is going to skew the data.

Yeah, it irritated me too. I want all those aquatic creatures, but not just because Gary did them first. About the only aquatic race I've not used is Locathath; their design space seems already taken up by sahaugin or kuo-toa.

 

[GSHamster]

For me, at least, the question then becomes: what's more terrifying to you, a person who does an evil thing, or an evil thing that looks exactly like a normal person?

The problem I see with your scenario is that it's always the humans who are the "real" bad guys. Sometimes it's nice to have a race where the monsters are the actual monsters.

I say leave the Yuan-Ti as they have traditionally been, and maybe make a new race that works in the inverse manner.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The problem with yuan-ti abominations is all the time spent sleeping.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The problem I see with your scenario is that it's always the humans who are the "real" bad guys. Sometimes it's nice to have a race where the monsters are the actual monsters.

I don't follow. The yuan-ti are the "real" bad guys -- the ones who look like humans are just the WORST, because they can get in close and collapse entire civilizations with a well-placed drip of venom.

Also, this is D&D. I'm pretty sure no one is going to take away monstrous monsters. I mean, I'm reasonably confident Beholders will still exist. Making a particular group of monsters something that is more subtle and eerie (rather than RARGH OBVIOUS MONSTER) isn't going to take anything away from that. Indeed, it'll enhance it: the more unique those monsters are, the bigger their psychological punch when they come oozing down the passageway at you.

 

[Jester David]

All I got out of the article is that WotC is terrified of offending people. They have to change half-breed to half-blood because someone might get upset. Then half-blood itself is deemed "too offensive" so we get a third term.

Yeah... any word that's unoffensive enough to make the cover of a children's book should be fine for D&D.

That is all. Move along.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

All I got out of the article is that WotC is terrified of offending people. They have to change half-breed to half-blood because someone might get upset. Then half-blood itself is deemed "too offensive" so we get a third term.

Yeah... any word that's unoffensive enough to make the cover of a children's book should be fine for D&D.

"Evil snake-people." Or should that be "snakepersons"?

 

[slobster]

All I got out of the article is that WotC is terrified of offending people. They have to change half-breed to half-blood because someone might get upset. Then half-blood itself is deemed "too offensive" so we get a third term.

Yeah... any word that's unoffensive enough to make the cover of a children's book should be fine for D&D.

That is all. Move along.

As a half-breed/half-blood/daywalker myself I can say that those terms have never bothered me. I guess it's better (for them) to be safe than sorry, but it is kind of sad that they feel they have to be so hyper sensitive.

Hopefully nobody complains about it and it never really becomes an issue.

 

[Jester David]

As a half-breed/half-blood/daywalker myself I can say that those terms have never bothered me. I guess it's better (for them) to be safe than sorry, but it is kind of sad that they feel they have to be so hyper sensitive.

Hopefully nobody complains about it and it never really becomes an issue.

Meh.

Half-black. Half-Latino. Half-Celtic. Half-German. All the same.

Really, the only non-blended people are native Africans. Everyone else has ancestors that bred with Neandertals and aren't even really 100% human. Technically speaking.

 

[Cybit]

One of the other things mentioned at PAX Prime was that the backgrounds of the characters would be modular. For instance, the typical D&D Minotaur takes its background from the mythological source, IE, a player might find a single minotaur in a labyrinth. However, they would put a sidebar of "OK, if you wanted to have a clan of minotaurs, or a whole race of them, this is one way of going about it..." and then give some ideas on how to integrate that alternative role in your universe.

So you will probably have different versions of Yuan-Ti.