D&D 5E D&D and who it's aimed at

[EzekielRaiden]

Yup, which is the same as in most MMORPGs, regardless of whether they're particularly optimal in said MMORPGs. Cue Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People".

It is legitimately interesting, though, that dragonborn--who are by far the most non-human-looking of the PHB races, and frankly less human-looking than the vast majority of 5e options--have risen so far. All the way to 3rd place if you split apart elves by their individual subraces (or 4th if you lump elves together), surpassing even tiefling. Obviously "dragons are cool" has some appeal, but it's really weird to have such non-human-looking options be ranked so highly. MMOs almost exclusively favor the particularly humanoid (and, among humanoid, the particularly beautiful, as you say) options.

As an avid dragonborn fan, I'm obviously super happy about this, but that doesn't make it any less weird.

 

[bedir than]

Never played 2e
A book? Not every book!

My bad, it was 1e's Complete Book of Humanoids

 

[Alzrius]

My bad, it was 1e's Complete Book of Humanoids

Actually, PHBR10 The Complete Book of Humanoids (affiliate link) is for AD&D 2E.

 

[bedir than]

Actually, PHBR10 The Complete Book of Humanoids (affiliate link) is for AD&D 2E.

The main point is that when people claim that only 5e has a glut of monstrous races they're just wrong.
My cute hybsil was real to me

 

[Greg Benage]

But, it also ignores the fact that now it's up to the table, rather than the game, to decide if that's something they want.

I don't want to have to create a spreadsheet listing all the ability score bonuses of the dozens of player ancestries in the game, and I don't want my players to have to reference such a spreadsheet. If they continue listing the ability score bonuses (and continue to implement them in the Roll20 character builder), no big deal.

 

[billd91]

And I hope they'll include archetypal suggested ASIs in the 2024 PHB, in addition to the default floating ASI, to accommodate the crowd who likes to have some guidance on that front (and wants something other than class optimization). Plus lore alternatives, to demonstrate how your world can embrace or differ from the default assumptions.

I think your hopes are unlikely to be met. Looking at how things are developing (such as the Kender in the new UA), they are no longer including archetypal ASIs and are unlikely to do so going forward. And that's the issue with "you can always choose to use them". You can't choose to use what doesn't exist without inventing it yourself. Sure, you can invent or look back at previous publications that had them and implement them as DM, but you go from the position of choosing among options presented or choosing to relax an option (if the archetypal ASIs were the norm), to being a tyrannical, restrictive DM that I guarantee will be raked over the coals here on the internet no matter how many people say "oh sure, you can choose".

 

[Micah Sweet]

Fair enough. I find that people say a lot of things that don't necessarily turn out to be true, so, I take a more wait and see approach to things like this. WotC, so far, has done pretty well with the settings it's brought back. Did a good job with Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms and Eberron. I'm fairly willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they will continue to do a pretty good job with other settings.

I disagree with giving WotC the benefit of the doubt (in general, actually), but I will admit their Spelljammer will at least be relatively easy to convert to the old ways, and is true to the theme of the setting. There's probably stuff to be mined there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is 1940s music excluded from popular music charts? Or could it be that it just aint popular any more?

Big tent is big tent. You can't just include the most popular options if you want to be inclusive.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Big tent is big tent. You can't just include the most popular options if you want to be inclusive.

But you can exclude unpopular options if they're more trouble than they're worth. Even big tents have bouncers/security.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But you can exclude unpopular options if they're more trouble than they're worth. Even big tents have bouncers/security.

Is sword and sorcery more trouble than it's worth? It's the original basis (the lion's share of it) of the game's inspiration. It's literary legacy is still strongly felt today, with franchises like the Witcher. I can't believe there's any good reason to drop it.