Does anyone actually like Dragonborn and Tieflings?

[mlund]

Good point. That's why no real life animals have horns.

No, that's why no real life humans give birth to goats and giraffes. Tieflings, on the other hand, are typically born to human mothers who are not designed to give birth to spawn with horns and tails. Also, the Tiefling's skull structure (that awful neanderthal brow-ridge) seems to indicate to me that they are born with horns intact. I can't see how growing the horns post-facto would allow for the skull to develop that way.

Good thing they're not reptiles, then.

By definition, they are not mammals because they do not give birth to live young. You could make them vaguely Avian with none of the necessary traits or make up some new Draconic category, but they still don't give birth to live young or nurse their young - ergo breasts are simply there to facilitate bad art.

Well, anime-style catgirls for one thing. I can't believe that 4E left out the anime-style catgirls. That would have drove sales to an entirely new level.

Well, there are PC stats for the Shifters in the Monster Manual, and they are actually pretty solid - just keep them away from the Yiff-Yiff crowd.

- Marty Lund

 

[Dragonbait]

By definition, they are not mammals because they do not give birth to live young. You could make them vaguely Avian with none of the necessary traits or make up some new Draconic category, but they still don't give birth to live young or nurse their young - ergo breasts are simply there to facilitate bad art.

Well go tell the Echidna and Platypus that they are reptiles or birds then. Those little bastards have been lying to the media, telling people that they are mammals for all these years..
Monotremes (from the Greek monos 'single' + trema 'hole', referring to the cloaca) are mammals that lay eggs (Prototheria) instead of giving birth to live young like marsupials (Metatheria) and placental mammals (Eutheria).

 

[Lurks-no-More]

No, that's why no real life humans give birth to goats and giraffes. Tieflings, on the other hand, are typically born to human mothers who are not designed to give birth to spawn with horns and tails. Also, the Tiefling's skull structure (that awful neanderthal brow-ridge) seems to indicate to me that they are born with horns intact. I can't see how growing the horns post-facto would allow for the skull to develop that way.

Sorry to borrow Hong's shtick, but you are thinking way too much about fantasy.

By definition, they are not mammals because they do not give birth to live young.

Ahem. The definition of "mammal" is that they nurse their young with milk, as the name implies. Monotremes, which lay eggs, are a subcategory of mammals.

You could make them vaguely Avian with none of the necessary traits or make up some new Draconic category, but they still don't give birth to live young or nurse their young - ergo breasts are simply there to facilitate bad art.

Or you might accept that they're fantasy humanoids that do not, and who do not have to fit into the real-world taxonomic classifications. I have absolutely no problem with dragonborn laying eggs, then nursing their young; it it was good enough for John Carter of Mars, it sure as heck is good for me.

 

[The Little Raven]

Mourn - What confuses me is that the Dragonborn in the DMG does have wings and can fly (iirc), which seems like a natural enough Paragon-tier feat or something, improving in the Epic tier, and indeed was hinted at by WotC a while

Indeed, that was a disappointment to see a lack of "I've got wings" racial feats. I was hoping for them, myself.

I didn't realize that they lacked a tail - I had simply assumed they did! That seems like a silly choice, really.

I agree. The big thick tail on the tiefling wasn't the best decision to me.

Pangolins have teats, though, not "boobs".

It's also not a humanoid. That's a key difference, since mimicking the human form means things are arranged in a particular manner. And a teat is just a nipple. Humans have teats, attached to breasts.

No, that's why no real life humans give birth to goats and giraffes. Tieflings, on the other hand, are typically born to human mothers who are not designed to give birth to spawn with horns and tails. Also, the Tiefling's skull structure (that awful neanderthal brow-ridge) seems to indicate to me that they are born with horns intact. I can't see how growing the horns post-facto would allow for the skull to develop that way.

1. Animals with horns and such do not have them at birth (they've got nubs at the most). They develop them later. Suggesting that tieflings pop out of the womb with big, sharp horns is kinda silly. The fact that they have heavy bone ridges on their foreheads doesn't mean they're born with those ridges.

2. Tieflings are not all born to humans. Most are born to tieflings, whose bodies are designed to process tiefling children. They just automatically breed true with humans (as well as tieflings).

3. If you can't see how a creature can go from being hornless to having massive horns, that's a failure of research, not the fault of the designers.

By definition, they are not mammals because they do not give birth to live young. You could make them vaguely Avian with none of the necessary traits or make up some new Draconic category, but they still don't give birth to live young or nurse their young - ergo breasts are simply there to facilitate bad art.

The platypus would like a word with you about monotremes.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Love Dragonborn, like Tieflings.


There I said it

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's also not a humanoid. That's a key difference, since mimicking the human form means things are arranged in a particular manner. And a teat is just a nipple. Humans have teats, attached to breasts.

Yes, I know this but they still don't make any sense given the written life-cycle of the Dragonborn, who "walk hours after hatching" and are "the size of a 10-year old human child by the age of 3". Humans need (ideally) to breastfeed for six months and it can be good to go on for another 18 or so (whilst the child is first unable to walk and then bad at it/slow - a problem for nomadic creatures), but the way it sounds with Dragonborn is that they're pretty much entirely skipping that whole "baby" stage of development and jumping immediately to "toddler", and almost immediately from there to quite a large child.

Humans have breasts in their particular place and of that shape because they're upright creatures who are going to be carrying small, incapable, children who will be feeding from them.

Dragonborn children do not seem to have non-walking stage, and so rapidly reach a size where they could keep up with adults that it seems that the boobs, they just don't make sense.

It's artist laziness, it really is. Maybe, actually, it's market research too, but I find that hard to believe, given how popular female Iksar were with actual females in EQ/EQ2. Unless, haha, market research shows that there's a lot of GUYS out there who are keen to played boobed dragonwomen. Which I can TOTALLY believe, because, y'know, the internet, shows pretty clear that such people exist in some numbers.

So maybe I finally worked it out? I hope not!

Edit - Jesus I'm such a nerd.

 

[Maggan]

It's artist laziness, it really is. Maybe, actually, it's market research too

I'd put it down not to "laziness", but to "art direction". And said "art direction" is probably the result of "target group tests" and "market analysis".

So yeah, I'd chalk it up to market research and focus group testing. Which can still get things wrong, but which is a far cry from "artist laziness".

/M

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Anyways...
I just learned that nature is telling the people that insist that dragaonborn can NOT be mammals are wrong. Green, scales, and boobs CAN mix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin

If WOTC wants to create ant-eater people with nipples then I won't object. They can join the Griff and other such lame-arse races.

 

[blargney the second]

They're both fine and could see myself playing either one in certain circumstances.
-blarg

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd put it down not to "laziness", but to "art direction". And said "art direction" is probably the result of "target group tests" and "market analysis".

So yeah, I'd chalk it up to market research and focus group testing. Which can still get things wrong, but which is a far cry from "artist laziness".

/M

To be honest, as an artist, I don't think it's a particularly far cry. However I do think it's unfair to blame the artists, you're right, it's the art direction if anything. What I hope is that they found that they needed a way to differentiate female and male Dragonborn, and then, unwilling/unable to do it any other way, just went "Bah, boobs I guess!". What I'm scared of is that they found a lot of their potential market were dudes who were totally into being dragons with boobs. Because I'm not sure I could look at my fellow D&D players the same way again, if that's the case!