D&D 5E (2014) D&D and who it's aimed at

[Cadence]

I don't know. If all the creatures in the artwork lacked skin, it would probably turn me off to the game.

Didn't one or two of the transparent skinned ghouls get along pretty well with Fafhrd and/or Mouser?

 

[Maxperson]

Didn't one or two of the transparent skinned ghouls get along pretty well with Fafhrd and/or Mouser?

I don't remember. It has been at least 25 years since I read those books. Given their exploits, though, it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The latest WoW expansion has dragon people. That segment of the population is gaining increased exposure.

See below. These are more like FFXIV's au'ra: humans with scales and horns, rather than human-shaped dragons. They're (as the below image shows) "boarderline [sic] furry." Or "borderline scalie," if you prefer.

Based on the reaction to a tame and PG Conan picture, and many of the tropes associated with the genre being unsavory? Yeah, probably for Wizards.

And I consider this "hot" take to be a massive overreaction. WotC has chosen to make a slow, minimalist release schedule: typically one player-option book, one monster book, one setting-book, and a couple adventure books a year. Since they're going to want a diversity of theme and tone over time, this is going to mean that there will be times--perhaps significant stretches--where things appeal to some segments of the audience and not others. That does not mean that there is a permanent, irrevocable shift denigrating one group's preferences and exalting another's. And that's exactly what the "sanitized" group keeps claiming, while exactly what their critics keep denying.

I think Dragonborn hit multiple archetypes not otherwise present in the PHB, which is probably why they're so popular:

1) Big strong guy. They're by far the tallest and bulkiest race in the PHB and have a STR bonus. A lot of people who would never play Mountain Dwarf will play them.

Oh, they definitely hit multiple archetypes, but so do many analogous races in MMOs, yet they don't draw nearly the same attention. Consider GW2's charr. They're absolutely big strong guys (they're at least as tall as norn and look stronger, what with the whole "horned lion-bear people" thing), and hit most of your other archetypes below, but they're the least common race, placing below even the decidedly alien-looking asura.

2) Honorable warrior race guy. They're the closest you're going to get to Klingons, Neitzscheans, Luxans, and so on in the PHB (and one of the closest in D&D generally), and people just love that vibe.

See, I'd actually say they're something more than most of these, and that THAT is actually the unique draw that pulls people to them. Specifically, other than maybe the Nietzscheans, most of these are characterized as valuing "honor" or "valor" etc. to a degree that makes them scorn scientific pursuits. (I didn't watch much Andromeda, so I can't speak to the Nietzschean overall culture.) Klingons, however, are sort of the de facto Proud Warrior Race, and there's two key differences between them and dragonborn, at least the way they're presented with the Arkhosia story in 4e. That is, in general, dragonborn (1) do not scorn the more "effete" approaches, being perfectly comfortable with sorcery and guile when it suits them, and (2) are fairly "disciplined," communicating a greater degree of "nobility," whereas the Klingons were specifically geared (literally!) to appear violent and dangerous (hence tropes like "Klingon promotion," where killing your boss gives you your boss's position).

I highlight this only because this specific distinction, where dragonborn are a proud warrior race allowed to be suave and disciplined without having to be gracile in the doing, is a HUGE part of why I like them so much. I also like charr in GW2 and hrothgar in FFXIV for similar reasons: they're all proud warrior race types, but they aren't presented as being ugly and brutish as a result of being proud warrior race types.

3) Animal-person or Dragon-person. <snop>

Sure, though there are...gradations, shall we say. More below (the "furry chart" image).

I don't actually agree re: weird, in MMORPGs it doesn't work quite like you say. Humans and Elves are usually the most popular races. But right after them, usually next is not "whatever else is pretty", it's often a big animal-man or the like. WoW shows this (figures from 2019 but no new races have been added since):

World of Warcraft: character distribution by race 2019| Statista

The statistic shows the share of the various races in the online computer game World of Warcraft as of December 2019.

www.statista.com

Humans and Elves way at the top, but immediately after them on Alliance we have Draenei (big, strong demon-people) and Worgen (Werewolf-people). On Horde, Elves again are at the top, but then it's Orcs (the handsomer, now-standing-up-straight Orcs of WoW) and Tauren (Minotaur-people) - both slightly higher than they look because of Highmountain Tauren and Mag'har Orcs lower down the list (which are essentially slight appearance-changes of the same races).

Well, keep in mind, I don't personally classify miqo'te, au'ra, viera, worgen, draenei, or tieflings as being particularly non-humanoid. Draenei I'll grant, what with their cloven hooves. Worgen, however, are absolutely humans who just have the ability to put on a magical fursuit--if they could only be in worgen form, that'd be a different story. Tauren, pandaren, and a few other races are like draenei. Unfortunately, part of the problem here is that race choice actually kind of matters mechanically in WoW, so (for example) orc was usually over-represented among hunters and warlocks because their pets would do 5% extra damage (and that legit mattered at least in some expansions; I dropped out a few months before the MoP beta so I don't know how that evolved after that point.) IOW, you'll see slightly inflated numbers for non-humans because playing a non-human may confer a permanent mechanical advantage, which is not the case in games like FFXIV and GW2.

But yeah, "human with some animal parts tacked on," e.g. miqo'te cat ears and tail or viera bunny ears, is to me literally just the same as being human and wearing a cosmetic item. If you take the WoW data for the Alliance and pool together Stormwind, Kul Tiras, and Gilnean humans, plus Night and Void elves, you've got just about one third (33.2%) of all US-realm characters are essentially either human or elf, and almost 40% are human, elf, or draenei.

FFXIV used to follow this pattern but over the years cat-people and dragon-people became the most popular races with humans a distant third. But in that game both the cat and dragon people are extremely human-looking, with human faces for example. Whereas FFXIV elves are kind of terrible-looking. Evidently if you're not a sexy elf you don't count for elf-ing purposes.

It's gotten even more lopsided since female, and then especially when male, viera arrived. Male viera, despite being less than six months old, are the fourth most popular gender/race combo, after female miqo'te (by far first), female au'ra, and the distant third, male hyur (which, for any readers who don't play FFXIV, is the in-game term for humans.) Female miqo'te and female au'ra, just the two of them, make up almost a third of all "endgame" characters. The lowest 5 options (from the bottom up: female roegadyn, male roegadyn, female elezen, male hrothgar since the female option is still in the works, and male elezen) comprise approximately 9.9% of all characters, meaning exactly a third of all possible race/gender combos are only represented by 10% of characters.

Note that, theoretically, these are not estimates, but rather actual population figures--the FFXIV Census people scrape the official Lodestone, which allows them to check for who has done certain content (via checking for the presence of certain minions or achievements etc.)

I think the underlying rule is, if doesn't have an animal head, it's not an animal-person. It's just a person with some animal features.

This may be a useful guide (even if it has spelling mistakes):

Most "non-human" races are either neko or "boarderline." They're "still just a human with cat ears and tail" or the like. Your "that looks furry to me" line is, more or less, the furry line shown above, where facial features (like the nose) begin to shift toward animal characteristics. Options like hrothgar and charr are somewhere between "more furry" and "furry" proper.

One thing I note is it's very clearly different groups of players willing to play both. A lot of people who will play a Satyr, Yuan-Ti Pureblood or a Centaur would never play a Dragonborn or a Tabaxi or Aarakocra, and I suspect vice-versa.

Tritons are just underwater humans, they're clearly not in the same category. Sahugin or something would be actual fish-people (I swear I saw 5E rules for them at some point, not official I guess).

On the "different strokes for different folks": sure. I'm not much interested in yuan-ti or centaurs. Satyrs can be cool though, might be because I like draenei. On the tritons thing: that's how I view most allegedly "non-human" races in many games. Dwarves, gnomes, halflings, etc. are just short humans (which is its own turn-off for many players--height correlates with status.) Tieflings are humans with fantastical skin tones and maybe horns and a tail. Etc.

that almost sounds like an awesome fighter

I know right?

So, popular radio stations that don't play big band music are being uninclusive?!

This question has two answers, but they require nuance.

On the one hand: yes, it absolutely is, because "popular radio" is a genre all on its own (I mean, we literally call it "pop music") and choosing to play that type of music is as valid as choosing to play country music. Indeed, one could argue that a country music station in somewhere like Nashville is "popular" music for its locale.

On the other hand: no, it absolutely isn't, because I suspect what you mean by that is "stations which don't commit to any particular stylistic choice." In which case, many stations will do things like having certain content hours, e.g. they might play an hour-long segment of rhythm and blues, or for like an oldies station, they might do decade-based themed hours at certain times of day, while selecting from the whole gamut at other times.

And that oldies station thing is a REALLY GOOD example here, because it reflects some key elements. "Oldies" is an ever-expanding genre; when I was a small child, "oldies" would never have included music from the 80s because that was still current music. Nowadays, the apparent successor to "oldies" is "classic hits" stations, which do more or less the same thing, but include music all the way up to the early 90s in some cases (because that was 30 years ago). That doesn't mean they're "sanitizing" older pieces like, say, White Rabbit (from 1967). In some cases, it's because stations are just playing different music, not any cleaner or dirtier than other eras, just music published later because it's more interesting to their core demographic.

Conan isn't left out for being "trouble". Have you played The Witcher computer games? They have far more bonking, nudity and general sexism than Conan ever had.

Conan is left out for a much simpler reason. People aren't interested in it. It's out of fashion.

Yeah. The Witcher is full of INCREDIBLY dark and/or sexual themes. That's honestly one of the reasons I haven't played it; a friend adored the games and told me much about it and I just...I don't want to deal with those kinds of choices. I don't mean "struggling to choose the right thing," either. I mean that, in at least some cases, there are literally NO good choices, not even any neutral choices, it's literally "choose the flavor of horrible awfulness you'd like to side with." I would give examples but...well, that would require me to give details about things that might be legitimately upsetting to a significant chunk of people. Because that's how bad these choices get.

As long as the station doesnt claim to be for 'everyone' and its fan's attack anyone that wants something other than pop once in awhile? Nah.

If they claim to be for everyone, and the fans proudly declare that its for everyone and inclusive of all tastes, but you never hear punk rock? Yeah, thats misleading.

Okay. How about older fans who attack any newer fan who says "hey, it's pretty cool to get something for me for a change"?

Because that's exactly how this feels to me. I only see one side saying or implying that someone else's preferences are childish or immature or "sanitized" or incapable of offering adventure or unwilling to engage with mature topics. And I only see one side getting all flustered and annoyed that they're being kicked out of the club just because a couple releases looked too colorful.

 

[Older Beholder]

I'm not sure if it's a specific aim, but I've noticed more families playing D&D together.

I've had a friend running games for his sister, brother in law and nephew. I've seen posts on social media about people that have invited their Grandparents to gaming sessions. I once ran a game for a bunch of guys in their 20's, and one invited his dad along who hadn't played since 1st edition, which was such a great experience.

I'm sure this has happened for as long as TTRPG's have existed, but I've been noticing it's a far more common thing in 5E.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It'd be like those museum exhibits with the plastinated organs and stuff.

Actually, that sounds like a great idea for some kind of modded flesh golem. Better write that down.

I actually used a thing like this to emphasize how weird and alien my Totally Not Fae "vanished advanced race" was. I repurposed the very excellent Gardens of Ynn supplement as The Garden-City of Zerzura, and its creators were Arabicized as "Shi," since that's...basically how sidhe is pronounced.) The Shi are innately beautiful to the point of absurdity, with even their skeletons draped on the floor in aesthetically-pleasing ways despite having been dead for centuries....and they also have some very, very Blue-and-Orange Morality going on. One of the places the party visited as they were travelling through my homebrewed "actual city" portion of Zerzura was a little park with tubes or pillars of transparent, glass-like material on plinths. These "glass" pillars were full of clear liquid...and each one had a living, functional human-sized organ floating in its center. The floating heart pumped nonexistent blood, the floating lung breathed nonexistent air, etc. Somehow, the Shi, through their mastery of esoteric science and magic, had found a way to make and preserve these organs, living, yet unaffected by the ravages of time or, y'know, not being part of a body. They found this beautiful, and thus displayed it for people to see.

I was very proud, overall, of how I characterized the shi. They could be scary as hell, but they didn't mean anything antagonistic by it, generally speaking. They just...don't have the moral sensibilities shared by most mortal races.

 

[Scribe]

Because that's exactly how this feels to me. I only see one side saying or implying that someone else's preferences are childish or immature or "sanitized" or incapable of offering adventure or unwilling to engage with mature topics. And I only see one side getting all flustered and annoyed that they're being kicked out of the club just because a couple releases looked too colorful.

Then you are missing some posts.

See below. These are more like FFXIV's au'ra: humans with scales and horns, rather than human-shaped dragons. They're (as the below image shows) "boarderline [sic] furry." Or "borderline scalie," if you prefer.

I have no knowledge in this area, I'll take your word for it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Then you are missing some posts.

Okay. I admit that the thread has moved faster than I could follow, but I have yet to see people straight-up insulting the preferences of folks who liked early content. I have seen the reverse multiple times, both in this thread and, separately, in previous threads.

I have no knowledge in this area, I'll take your word for it.

Having looked into it more (since I'm not really much into WoW anymore, as noted): turns out the new race is a bit like worgen, in that it's more a "weredragon" than I'd thought. That is, I thought this was as "dragony" as the new WoW race would get...

But it turns out that silvery-colored dragon person in the background is also this character, that's her "dragon form." Which, I admit, makes them pretty furry/"scalie." Their "humanoid" form is a human with some scales glued on, but their dragon form is legit actually a bipedal dragon.

 

[Scribe]

Okay. I admit that the thread has moved faster than I could follow, but I have yet to see people straight-up insulting the preferences of folks who liked early content. I have seen the reverse multiple times, both in this thread and, separately, in previous threads.

I'm not going to go digging. It happens to me often enough because I like features or aspects of even early 5e, that people do not.

As to the Dragon forms, yeah, its pretty different to me, will be interesting to see them in action when it releases but I mostly stick to the legacy versions of the game.

 

[deganawida]

Didn't one or two of the transparent skinned ghouls get along pretty well with Fafhrd and/or Mouser?

Fafhrd was romantically involved with one.

 

[Umbran]

I hear you, but this is such an unbelievably lost cause. If all you’re hoping to do is rile up WotC stans and get them to embarrass themselves extolling the virtues of corporate capitalism while also unintentionally revealing their total disinterest and disdain toward any RPG publisher who isn’t making bland fantasy for maximum market share…

Hmm. Actually, carry on.

Mod Note:

We expect folks to show a modicum of respect for others on these boards. You are completely failing to do so. Your disdain for others is not compatible with having a civil conversation... so you will no longer be part of this conversation.

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