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

[Mind of tempest]

WW is White Wolf.

Ironically, Big: the Footening would probably just be Werewolf: the Apocalypse just with more bounding into out of focus areas when cameras are present.

they had a vampire show on VHS once is all I really know about that companies game lines.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You really don't have to know more than they used the same template (i.e. Vampire: the Masquerade, Mage: the Awakening, Hunter: the Vigil) for the names of all of their World of Darkness line of games. People building off their ideas and systems have made fan games using the template was well (Magical Girl themed 'Princess the Hopeful' and Mad Scientist-based 'Genius: the Transgression').

And of course lazy satirist like myself then had a field day with it and should be ashamed but aren't.

 

[Mind of tempest]

You really don't have to know more than they used the same template (i.e. Vampire: the Masquerade, Mage: the Awakening, Hunter: the Vigil) for the names of all of their World of Darkness line of games. People building off their ideas and systems have made fan games using the template was well (Magical Girl themed 'Princess the Hopeful' and Mad Scientist-based 'Genius: the Transgression').

And of course lazy satirist like myself then had a field day with it and should be ashamed but aren't.

there are far worse things to exploit in this life.
how have we not had playable bigfoots in what 50 years that seem odd somehow?

 

[billd91]

If anything, this is a good reason for a DM to curate what's available in the campaign! (cue the inevitable criticism from entitled players demanding to play what they want to play)

A bit more seriously, playing Keep on the Borderlands always kind of drives home the idea that there are and have been too many variations on the same thing in D&D... and they proliferated for years. Exactly why we have goblins, kobolds, orcs, hobgoblins, norkers, bugbears, and gnolls, why we have so many different flavors of elves and dwarves, ghasts and ghouls, and about a zillion other variations?
I at least partly blame the idea that variations need mechanical differentiation to be meaningful to game designers (and certain kinds of players). I also blame the drive to publish new stuff all the time that previous editions used to deal with - how many monster books can we pad full of creatures to keep the lights on at the company?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

there are far worse things to exploit in this life.
how have we not had playable bigfoots in what 50 years that seem odd somehow?

Dude. You can play a Yeti or something extremely similar to a Yeti (it might have a different name) in 2E. It's the awful "Evil Humanoid PC Complete Guide" book the name of which escapes me.

they had a vampire show on VHS once is all I really know about that companies game lines.

It was actually on network TV and was actually getting ratings so good it was going to be renewed, until one of the main characters (or possibly main-main one) died in a motorcycle accident.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is largely because the games you are thinking of are full of adolescent males.

The last MMO I played I was a 4 foot tall robot.

As previously mentioned I played a half ogre - when I was an adolescent male...

I don't think that's really true, though, re: adolescent males. I've been playing MMOs since 1999, and frankly, a lot of MMO players, outside the first few years of WoW, most players have been kind of geriatric, like, 30+, 40+ even 50+. WoW temporarily made that dip, with a massive onslaught of younger players (mostly late teens and early twenties), but it's 16 years later, and now WoW's population looks much more like how most MMOs did in say, 2002. Old.

Big tough races and short annoying ones are both popular with teenage boys. Like, any given male gnome in WoW, it's 50/50 that that's some jerkass 14-year-old dude or a 40-something bore. Likewise with a Tauren, it's like 50/50 between a really solid and sensible 30+ year old guy, and a 20-ish but still hormonal maniac.

The actually most reliable teenage jerk-face determinant in WoW is "Are they playing a Human Male Warrior with facial hair". Bonus points if it's facial hair and a shaved head. If you see a Human Male Warrior with a beard or worse, a terrible mustache, and a shaved head, or really short hair, there is at least an 80% chance (on EU WoW at least) that that is a very angry young man.

 

[Mind of tempest]

If anything, this is a good reason for a DM to curate what's available in the campaign! (cue the inevitable criticism from entitled players demanding to play what they want to play)

A bit more seriously, playing Keep on the Borderlands always kind of drives home the idea that there are and have been too many variations on the same thing in D&D... and they proliferated for years. Exactly why we have goblins, kobolds, orcs, hobgoblins, norkers, bugbears, and gnolls, why we have so many different flavors of elves and dwarves, ghasts and ghouls, and about a zillion other variations?
I at least partly blame the idea that variations need mechanical differentiation to be meaningful to game designers (and certain kinds of players). I also blame the drive to publish new stuff all the time that previous editions used to deal with - how many monster books can we pad full of creatures to keep the lights on at the company?

look I swear when people make a curated setting what they mean is humans, halflings, elves, dwarves and one new thing nothing against curated but just slightly different from basic not-Tolkien is just not really stretching the world-building muscles.

Dude. You can play a Yeti or something extremely similar to a Yeti (it might have a different name) in 2E. It's the awful "Evil Humanoid PC Complete Guide" book the name of which escapes me.



It was actually on network TV and was actually getting ratings so good it was going to be renewed, until one of the main characters (or possibly main-main one) died in a motorcycle accident.

look I only know it exists because the vhs tapes are still in the dining room, mum most likely watched it.

 

[MGibster]

The actually most reliable teenage jerk-face determinant in WoW is "Are they playing a Human Male Warrior with facial hair". Bonus points if it's facial hair and a shaved head. If you see a Human Male Warrior with a beard or worse, a terrible mustache, and a shaved head, or really short hair, there is at least an 80% chance (on EU WoW at least) that that is a very angry young man.

You just described my main!

 

[Oofta]

look I swear when people make a curated setting what they mean is humans, halflings, elves, dwarves and one new thing nothing against curated but just slightly different from basic not-Tolkien is just not really stretching the world-building muscles.

look I only know it exists because the vhs tapes are still in the dining room, mum most likely watched it.

Or alternatively they just don't think dozens upon dozens of humanoid races (playable and "monster" included) doesn't make sense. Like @billd91 I think there are too many variations of the same basic concept.

You do you, but it has nothing to do with "stretching the world-building muscles". I could create a campaign world that was a crossroads of the multiverse if I wanted to and it would make sense to me. I don't want to do that (and players aren't asking for it), so I don't. It's just a personal preference, nothing more.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The actually most reliable teenage jerk-face determinant in WoW is "Are they playing a Human Male Warrior with facial hair". Bonus points if it's facial hair and a shaved head. If you see a Human Male Warrior with a beard or worse, a terrible mustache, and a shaved head, or really short hair, there is at least an 80% chance (on EU WoW at least) that that is a very angry young man.

OMG, I'm an angry young man's avatar!