D&D 5E Goliaths WebDM Misses the Mark, but Sparks My Curiosity

[Urriak Uruk]

My problem with the goliath is that it's mostly a stand-in for players to be a giant, without actually being a giant. And if I want to play a giant, screw balance let me be a fire giant!

At the very least being a Dark Sun half-giant is more interesting that goliath (being a slave race genetically designed by the sorcerer kings).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My problem with the goliath is that it's mostly a stand-in for players to be a giant, without actually being a giant. And if I want to play a giant, screw balance let me be a fire giant!

At the very least being a Dark Sun half-giant is more interesting that goliath (being a slave race genetically designed by the sorcerer kings).

I’ve never had someone play a Goliath because giants aren’t playable.

 

[Bardic Dave]

I’m not a big fan of Goliaths. I prefer to have bright lines between fantasy archetypes. When you have too much overlap between different races, classes, monsters, etc. they all start to lose their raison d’être. For me, Goliaths are too much of a poor man’s giant that make real giants less special by existing.
I’d prefer to just reskin goliaths as a particular tribe of human. That works much better with my concept of a fantasy world.
Edit: this is of course just my personal preference. These types of preferences are by definition highly subjective.

 

[Fenris-77]

@Bardic Dave - Just curious, do you then have a similar issue with half orcs and half elves?

 

[Bardic Dave]

@Bardic Dave - Just curious, do you then have a similar issue with half orcs and half elves?

No, because they represent a particular fantasy archetype that resonates with me: the of-both-worlds-but-belonging-to-neither outsider. They don’t overlap with regular orcs and elves in that capacity, so they’re in the clear.
Basically, if you have too many different exemplars cluttering each archetype and blurring the lines between archetpyes, it’s harder to tell coherent and satisfying archetypal stories. Messy, more nuanced stories can be interesting too, but they aren’t what I play D&D for. Obviously, this is a highly personal preference, and choosing which races/monsters/classes fit within this model is a highly subjective exercise. There’s no single right way to do it, just as there’s no single right way to play. I don’t begrudge others their Goliaths and their kitchen sink fantasy; I just like things simpler and more tightly focussed.
Edit: I do like different fantasy genres. Steampunk, sword and sorcery, high fantasy, whatever. I just like each genre to be a distilled version of itself. Goliaths might be cool in some hypothetical fantasy setting, but probably not one that also includes giants, dwarves, orcs, and trolls.

 

[Fenris-77]

To each his own. I don't find that Goliaths make giants less special, but, this thread to the contrary, I don't actually think of them in terms of "half giant" really. Humans with giant blood might be closer to my mental picture. Anyway, personal preference. If I had to pick one 'large' player race it would be Goliaths, over Minotaurs or whatever. The single exception being the Bear race from Kobold's Midgard, which is awesome, but not WoTC standard. Interestingly, it's the blurring of lines that pretty much defines my likes and dislikes there as well. I just find Goliaths less blurry than Minotaurs, Bugbears, or any of the other playable monster races.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Apparently “lives within a mountain range” is an archetype”?

Seriously how are dwarves relevant to a discussion about Goliaths?

 

[Mecheon]

Seriously how are dwarves relevant to a discussion about Goliaths?

I mean, they were introduced in Races of Stone, IE: The 3.5e book about dwarves, gnomes, and goliaths

 

[Don Durito]

Apparently “lives within a mountain range” is an archetype”?

Seriously how are dwarves relevant to a discussion about Goliaths?

To be fair - mountain ranges in D&D have always been overpacked!

You've got Dwarves. You've got Goblins. Somewhere up really high you've got your dragons and cloud giants; there was an old Dragon magazine that introduced Snow Elves. Often the mountains are where Orcs hide out too when they're not raiding into civilised lands.

Clearly the most important land that everyone fights over is the mountains. The humans get the leftover fertile lowland plains because no one else wants it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean, they were introduced in Races of Stone, IE: The 3.5e book about dwarves, gnomes, and goliaths

Okay. So...why aren’t Rock Gnomes part of this conversation?

To be fair - mountain ranges in D&D have always been overpacked!

You've got Dwarves. You've got Goblins. Somewhere up really high you've got your dragons and cloud giants; there was an old Dragon magazine that introduced Snow Elves. Often the mountains are where Orcs hide out to when they're not raiding into civilised lands.

Clearly the most important land that everyone fights over is the mountains. The humans get the leftover fertile lowland plains because no one else wants it.

Eeehhhhhh. I mean, it’s fun to poke fun at a world on that sort of basis, but I’m not willing to actually involve that sort of analysis in a serious discussion about the world, unless the discussion is, “how can we make the places that aren’t supposed to be crowded less crowded”, or something like that.