D&D General The Evolution of Tieflings in D&D: Interviews with Zeb Cook and Colin McComb

Imaro · Jul 11, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
The design team loves planescape. like, a lot. To the point where they decided, without any survey data to back it up, to make planescape the canon of all 5e dnd. Even to the point where they had to come up with a weird explanation for why the cosmology and history of certain races are different in Eberron. It's a mind boggling decision, IMO, but that ship has sailed into the space between crystal spheres.

Hasn't this been (in a broad sense) the canon for every edition of D&D since 1e (excluding 4e)? I mean Eberron just like Dark Sun and Ravenloft are variant settings why would any of their cosmologies be the canon for D&D (and yes that includes Nentir Vale) and why would you expect there not to be changes to accommodate them?

doctorbadwolf said:
Apperently, we're supposed to care about the status or Greyhawk Nerule when determining whether to keep The Raven Queen's origin the same or completely change her entire character to the point where it simply isn't the same entity in any way, even though she doesn't exist in Greyhawk. Because planescape, therefor all the worlds share a cosmology to some degree. There aren't enough emojis for how lame this is.

So, of course they include weird options for the race from planescape that had a ton of different ways to look.

And yet, nearly all fan art for the race is still pretty much the default aesthetic.

Funny when I googled 5e Tiefling this is the 2nd fan art piece I got... It looks nothing like the default... More importantly when I look at the art being used to represent tiefling characters on websites, blogs, twitter, etc. they seem to be be pulled from a wide range of Tiefling interpretations. Why are we only looking at fan art as a metric vs. what those playing tieflings in 5e are using to represent their characters?

doctorbadwolf · Jul 11, 2019

Imaro said:
Hasn't this been (in a broad sense) the canon for every edition of D&D since 1e (excluding 4e)? I mean Eberron just like Dark Sun and Ravenloft are variant settings why would any of their cosmologies be the canon for D&D (and yes that includes Nentir Vale) and why would you expect there not to be changes to accommodate them?

It has never been canon in a way that required changing settings that were canonically disconnected from other worlds. Expecting a situation like Nentir Vale having to make the Raven Queen not have killed Nerule because he's alive in Greyhawk is both new, and completely bonkers.

Funny when I googled 5e Tiefling this is the 2nd fan art piece I got... It looks nothing like the default... More importantly when I look at the art being used to represent tiefling characters on websites, blogs, twitter, etc. they seem to be be pulled from a wide range of Tiefling interpretations. Why are we only looking at fan art as a metric vs. what those playing tieflings in 5e are using to represent their characters?

We don't have any data on what the majority of player's characters look like, outside of indexes of what people are drawing and linking in terms of character art. It's imperfect, but it indicates trends. And I've searched for teifling art/fanart several ways, and not one search result turned up a page where 90+ percent of the art wasn't within the description of the phb. I only found the image you posted in two searches (5e and blue), and in neither was it higher in the results than 10th.

Tony Vargas · Jul 11, 2019

Imaro said:
(and yes that includes Nentir Vale)

Just a quibble: Nentir Vale was just a place, a pretty small place, really, that could be dropped in many a generic fantasy world. Not a setting in the sense of Planescape or Greyhawk or anything like that.

Imaro · Jul 11, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
It has never been canon in a way that required changing settings that were canonically disconnected from other worlds. Expecting a situation like Nentir Vale having to make the Raven Queen not have killed Nerule because he's alive in Greyhawk is both new, and completely bonkers.

Wait... didn't 4e introduce changes to the FR, Dark Sun and Eberron? But changing a single deity is off the table in 4e's setting? Why?

doctorbadwolf said:
We don't have any data on what the majority of player's characters look like, outside of indexes of what people are drawing and linking in terms of character art. It's imperfect, but it indicates trends. And I've searched for teifling art/fanart several ways, and not one search result turned up a page where 90+ percent of the art wasn't within the description of the phb. I only found the image you posted in two searches (5e and blue), and in neither was it higher in the results than 10th.

Why aren't you searching for 5e Tieflings and looking at the art that pops up which is probably more representative of both the edition we are talking about as well as the race? Actually why is this even being presented as evidence...I'm failing to see how Tiefling fan art gives us any value when it comes to what D&D players are actually choosing to play in the game. It just seems silly to have even been brought up.

Aldarc · Jul 11, 2019

Imaro said:
You're assuming alot without much to back it up. I find your assertions interesting when contrasted with the fact that WotC has at this point published 10 subraces of Tieflings (plus the PHB main race) to date... The first of which in Sword Coast was basically an addendum to the Tiefling race stating that they didn't have to be of the blood of Asmodeus or look like the Tieflings in the PHB (Even if they have the PHB abilities)... if there was widespread preference for the monolithic Tiefling why expend the resources, page count and time to expand te race like this?

What do the prevailing narrative elements of the tieflings in 5e entail? Are tieflings descended from yugoloths or demons in SCAG or other publications? Are they plane-touched anymore? How do they look in subsequent 5e publications? How do the subraces in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes alter the appearance of the tieflings? What's the cultural impact of these "popular" alternate tiefling options from SCAG in the current Zeitgeist? Do we see this represented in the art to a significant degree?

Imaro said:
Funny when I googled 5e Tiefling this is the 2nd fan art piece I got... It looks nothing like the default... More importantly when I look at the art being used to represent tiefling characters on websites, blogs, twitter, etc. they seem to be be pulled from a wide range of Tiefling interpretations. Why are we only looking at fan art as a metric vs. what those playing tieflings in 5e are using to represent their characters?

I was not aware that a single piece of counter evidence disapproved the prevailing trend? When I googled the "tiefling fanart," which is a certainly a wider net than "5e Tiefling," I did not get that picture. Most of the pictures fall along the lines of the 4/5e tiefling fairly closely. Skin colors will vary, as they do in 4-5e. Horn shapes will vary, as they did in even 4e. Almost the entirety have feet instead of hooves or faun-legs or tails. Not that many look like some of the more common depictions of tieflings from 2e Planescape or 3e Forgotten Realms.

Hussar said:
And, really, how popular is that actually? Aren't tieflings about as popular as gnomes? As in, virtually no one plays except a tiny slice of gamers who are REALLY passionate about the race? I've never even seen so much as a suggestion of playing one in any game I've sat in on. Wasn't it somewhere around the bottom of the pack in the D&D Beyond polling?

From an anecdotal perspective, I usually have one tiefling per group in 5e.

Hussar · Jul 12, 2019

Imaro said:
/snip

Huh. Big, back sweeping horns, blue skin. How is this not the default 5e tiefling? No tail I suppose. :erm:

Aldarc said:
/snip

From an anecdotal perspective, I usually have one tiefling per group in 5e.

Heh. Fair enough. As I said, I've never actually seen one in play.

Imaro · Jul 12, 2019

Aldarc said:
What do the prevailing narrative elements of the tieflings in 5e entail? Are tieflings descended from yugoloths or demons in SCAG or other publications? Are they plane-touched anymore? How do they look in subsequent 5e publications? How do the subraces in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes alter the appearance of the tieflings? What's the cultural impact of these "popular" alternate tiefling options from SCAG in the current Zeitgeist? Do we see this represented in the art to a significant degree?

Seriously?? I'm not going to break down what each of the 10 subraces are, what they look like count artwork pieces in various WotC books or anything else you're asking for here. Again I am interested in the player base and whether they are choosing to play either in appearance or ability selection the base tiefling vs. the variants. Fan art, doesn't give me that info... the fact that WotC with the data they have (which I'm pretty sure is more rigorous than the amount of fan art from a google search)published alternate tieflings in not just 1 but 2 of the limited sourcebooks they've put out for 5e tells me that they were pretty sure there was demand for them.

Aldarc said:
I was not aware that a single piece of counter evidence disapproved the prevailing trend? When I googled the "tiefling fanart," which is a certainly a wider net than "5e Tiefling," I did not get that picture. Most of the pictures fall along the lines of the 4/5e tiefling fairly closely. Skin colors will vary, as they do in 4-5e. Horn shapes will vary, as they did in even 4e. Almost the entirety have feet instead of hooves or faun-legs or tails. Not that many look like some of the more common depictions of tieflings from 2e Planescape or 3e Forgotten Realms.

And fan art you googled doesn't give us any data about the prevailing trend of what's actually being played in D&D... as I said earlier it's just silly, it could even be influenced by your browser history and preferences...

Imaro · Jul 12, 2019

Hussar said:
Huh. Big, back sweeping horns, blue skin. How is this not the default 5e tiefling? No tail I suppose.

Small upright horns, no tail...and blue skin is not a trait of 5e phb tieflings...

Imaro · Jul 12, 2019

Hussar said:
Huh. Big, back sweeping horns, blue skin. How is this not the default 5e tiefling? No tail I suppose.

Small upright horns, no tail...and blue skin are all traits inconsistent with 5e phb tieflings...

doctorbadwolf · Jul 12, 2019

Imaro said:
Wait... didn't 4e introduce changes to the FR, Dark Sun and Eberron? But changing a single deity is off the table in 4e's setting? Why?

This makes it look like you didn’t read what you were quoting. 4e didn’t change anything to fit a common unified cosmology. The worlds were still separate. You’ve completely misread or ignored what I said.

Why aren't you searching for 5e Tieflings and looking at the art that pops up which is probably more representative of both the edition we are talking about as well as the race? .

I literally told you that I did so. Seriously read posts before replying to them.

D&D General The Evolution of Tieflings in D&D: Interviews with Zeb Cook and Colin McComb

Imaro

Legend

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle

Tony Vargas

Legend

Imaro

Legend

Aldarc

Legend

Hussar

Legend

Imaro

Legend

Imaro

Legend

Imaro

Legend

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle

Similar Threads

Related Articles