patrick y.
First Post
Is it D&D without Dragonborn/Tieflings/etc.? Yes.
Is it D&D with those things? Maybe.
Tieflings have been around a while; there's nothing wrong with a player being able to play one. Putting them in a race chapter in the beginning of the PHB sends the wrong message. It distances the game from the base races that are generic fantasy assumptions now (humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings, principally). It tritely says that "we're cool and dark and gritty" without actually being any of those things. It pushes a style that includes extraplanar beings as everyday things.
Conversely, I think putting races like tieflings, dragonborn, and the like sends the message that D&D isn't just a poor man's Tolkien (and Tolkien-knockoff) simulator. Which I think is the right message to send in a modern system. The boundaries of what is considered generic fantasy have expanded a lot in the last couple of decades, and I don't think you'd find a whole lot of younger fantasy fans, especially, who would consider dragonfolk or half-demons to be anything out of the ordinary. If races like tiefling were ever "cool and dark and gritty", it was a long time ago. At this point, I think distancing D&D from the idea that "generic fantasy" means human, dwarf, elf, halfling is a good thing, because the larger culture has long since done so.