And the mystery race is...hated

[llamatron2000]

Dragonborn. Ugh. Just....ugh. Maybe it'll be cool and lizardy. But hell, I'm sick of dragons, the overdone, overbred, overpowered hunks of scaled flesh.

 

[Wormwood]

PCs with scales and wings? Cool. Not too sold on the name, however.

That said, the more I think about Dragonborn, the more I prefer their inclusion to that of Orcs or Goblinoids---those races may have evolved beyond their Tolkien roots, but they still bear the stamp of their origins.

I kind of like how 4e is actively pursuing it own fantasy elements rather than simply echoing prevailing themes. D&D has always been its own genre, of course, but 4e seems to be more confident about defining itself.

 

[Rechan]

D&D has always been its own genre, of course, but 4e seems to be more confident about defining itself.

Its online player base, less so.

 

[broghammerj]

That said, the more I think about Dragonborn, the more I prefer their inclusion to that of Orcs or Goblinoids---those races may have evolved beyond their Tolkien roots, but they still bear the stamp of their origins.

I don't understand the anti-Tolkien sentiment on this board. DnD is not exclusively Tolkien, but it's pretty close. I would argue that if it weren't for Tolkien, myself and many others would not be playing this game. The LOTR movies have done nothing but promote fantasy and make it more mainstream. Why DND never did anything to capitalize on that, I am not sure.

I kind of like how 4e is actively pursuing it own fantasy elements rather than simply echoing prevailing themes. D&D has always been its own genre, of course, but 4e seems to be more confident about defining itself.

I totally disagree. It is not defining itself because it appears to be drastically different than previous incarnations. If you want to use re-defining itself than maybe I can agree. The inclusion in core is seeming more like a setting I have never gamed in.

 

[Li Shenron]

Seriously, was there any possible announcement of the mystery race that wasn't going to met with calls for drawing and quartering WOTC? So the race will be dragonborn. How bad can that be? I would have liked gnomes in my PHB, but apparently I am a minority. So I deal with it. Okay, start the endless argument about WOTC broke into your living room and ruined your game...

I don't think it's a terrible race, not my cup of tea but that's just because I dislike half-races when they become the norm*. But seriously, they could have spared us with the drama of a "mystery" race really, half-dragons have been done in multiple versions for years...

*and if you notice, we practically have 50% of the PHB races which are half-something

 

[.:avatar:.]

Evolving from "Father Tolkien" is a good thing for our freedom of imagination... Yet I feel that every fantsy notion should have roots in our world's folkore, symbols and myth.
From this prospective even the new family member Tiefling is ok (name apart)... but what about the dragonborn?

Apart from the background material that 4e phb will give us, do we have enough stuff to make them seem more than a "mmorpg style" race? I say mmorpg style because only in such games I've seen gargoyles and trolls adventuring togheter with human knights..
Dragonlance's Draconians might be an exception, but there they were the evil and foul born henchmen of the most evil dragon bitch goddes. They were created not as a PC race, even if they became one later on.
If in most campaign Dragonborn are going to be confined as the ambiguously aligned alien race ( mysterious and distant from the other), perhaps a more common but playable race would have been a better.

I mean, can you imagine the dragonborne in the steriotypical d&d tavern?

 

[Mouseferatu]

But seriously, they could have spared us with the drama of a "mystery" race really, half-dragons have been done in multiple versions for years...

*and if you notice, we practically have 50% of the PHB races which are half-something

The only race in the PHB that we know is a "half-race" is the half-elf. There are plenty of ways to present both dragonborn and tieflings that don't make them halfbreeds.

 

[Rechan]

do we have enough stuff to make them seem more than a "mmorpg style" race? I say mmorpg style because only in such games I've seen gargoyles and trolls adventuring togheter with human knights..

Incorrect.

No MMO has gargoyles, to my knowledge. "Trolls adventurign together with human knights" doesn't happen either; in WoW, there are two factions. The demi-humans, and the Monsters. The Monsters cannot adventure with the demihumans - the game even scrambles their communications so that one side can't even talk to the another.

So no, there's no "humans and trolls co-existing in a happy sing along".

I mean, can you imagine the dragonborne in the steriotypical d&d tavern?

Can you imagine the half-orc? After all. He's half orc. The Orcs, who ravage the land and rape the women and are evil incarnate, and yet here's one of the half breeds sitting in a tavern with farmers and craftsmen who've likely lost relatives to orc raids. How do they not kill that orc? He's got ORC BLOOD. Woe, how can they tolerate him?!

 

[pogre]

I'm in the wait-and-see camp. I banned Monks purely for flavor reasons. I have no problem doing the same to a core race if I cannot see Dragonborn fitting into my campaign. There are some intriguing possibilities with a lizardman-like race though.

 

[Wormwood]

I mean, can you imagine the dragonborne in the steriotypical d&d tavern?

I expect the stereotype to change.

edit: The stereotypical D&D tavern already has an open door policy on guys in Demon Armor with flaming, corrosive greataxes, animated shields and constellations of ioun stones. A bloke with scales and a tail shouldn't be too far fetched.