D&D General how did we end up with the thousand types of Bruiser?

[Mind of tempest]

how did we end up with the thousand types of Bruiser?
we have dwarves, orcs and family, minotaurs, Dragonborn and whatever Goliath are plus whatever we had it past editions
why do we seem to end up with some many bulky folks made only to mash things?
what is the point each one has to set it apart from the others?
why even have more than one of these per setting?

let the discussion commence!

 

[Leatherhead]

My guess?
People like to bash stuff (or they likely wouldn't be playing D&D) But bashing stuff isn't a character, so they make races. Then other people who like to bash stuff come along, and don't care for the existing bruiser race, and make their own so they too can bash stuff.

 

[Minigiant]

It's easy.

Many of the enemies of old school D&D were strong races who were dumb and primitive in one way or another.

Combine that with the game snagging ideas from every form of mythology it can for variety, speedsters tend to require more rules than bruisers, and smart folk being rare as races in mythology.

 

[Mind of tempest]

but why do we always seem to end up with so many of them?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

but why do we always seem to end up with so many of them?

Then you have to look at the history of each one individually. Dwarves and half orcs have been in since 1st edition because D&D lifted things wholesale from The Lord of the Rings. Goliaths and dragonborn are much more recent additions. Goliaths where probably added as a replacement for half orcs, since they had implications that made some players uncomfortable. Dragonborn where added because players said "The game has dragon in the title, why can't I play a dragon?"

Whatever the character looks like, The big guy is a standard fantasy trope. A typical party typically has at least two.

Addendum: Minotaurs. As a race, rather than an individual, first appear in The Chronicles of Narnia. They where added to D&D as a playable race via the Dragonlance setting, which just set out to have a different set of playable races in order to be different.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Then you have to look at the history of each one individually. Dwarves and half orcs have been in since 1st edition because D&D lifted things wholesale from The Lord of the Rings. Goliaths and dragonborn are much more recent additions. Goliaths where probably added as a replacement for half orcs, since they had implications that made some players uncomfortable. Dragonborn where added because players said "The game has dragon in the title, why can't I play a dragon?"

Whatever the character looks like, The big guy is a standard fantasy trope. A typical party typically has at least two.

Addendum: Minotaurs. As a race, rather than an individual, first appear in The Chronicles of Narnia. They where added to D&D as a playable race via the Dragonlance setting, which just set out to have a different set of playable races in order to be different.

goliaths are from races of stone 3e if memory serves.

it is more we end up with so many yet nothing ever seems to really get done with them, they also rarely tie in too much of the other elements of a setting other than as bags of hp or npc to hire.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

goliaths are from races of stone 3e if memory serves.

They are, but 3e had dozens of theoretically playable races. They didn't become significant until 4e.

it is more we end up with so many yet nothing ever seems to really get done with them, they also rarely tie in too much of the other elements of a setting other than as bags of hp or npc to hire.

D&D is just a set of tools, it's up to the DM and players to "do things" with them.

 

[jgsugden]

Because people thought each new version added something new to the game that allowed them to tell a different spin on their stories. In a sense, it is the same reason why we all play our own characters instead of everybody runnning the same pregens.

 

[Oofta]

Because we also have plenty of twiddly fingered magic users or hyper dextrous acrobats? If you cared enough (I don't) to add up all the races and sub races that fall into different categories I think you'd have far more that fall outside of the bruiser class than in.

It's just one archetype, there are only so many.

 

[DEFCON 1]

goliaths are from races of stone 3e if memory serves.

it is more we end up with so many yet nothing ever seems to really get done with them, they also rarely tie in too much of the other elements of a setting other than as bags of hp or npc to hire.

WotC's been leaving it to you to do something with them in your own campaign. If you choose not to... if you are just sitting back waiting for WotC to do the work for you... that's not WotC's problem.

Giving a half-dozen racial stats in a book so that someone could play a race they wanted is one of the easiest things WotC could do. So they do it. Whether or not you think more should be written about it is on you to do so for your game.