Dammit, Warlord, Warlock, Tiefling, and Dragonborn are growing on me.

[roguerouge]

Why do you keep insisting that the dragonborn are in some way related to dragon shamans and that they don't have a "base system of values" like all other humanoids? Just because they have scales?

Ah. It's because the game's consistently tried to MAKE "lizard humanoids as a viable player race and antagonist for decades.

As a result, I think of them as belonging to a set of similar (because similarly marketed) creatures and classes: lizardfolk, kobolds, dragon shamans, half dragons, dragonborn... not identical, obviously, but similar enough for obvious connections to be drawn.

To be fair, I DO see the kobold as a race that can be role played, given the whole Napoleon complex and "every big'un in the world wants to eat me" thing.

 

[Derren]

I see the problem but imo thats not a problem of dragonborn but, sorry, your imagination.
The PHB will probably have some bits on Dragonborn culture to help you with creating a culture for them but some motivations, especially the ones which makes people adventure, are universal to all (fantasy) races.

 

[SteveFoerster]

Nowhere in the D&D rules does it say that elves and dwarves don't like each other. Thats purely an invention of the individual Dm, like all motivations etc. is.

Maybe not recently, but in AD&D 1e there was a chart with the different PC races showing their default reaction to one another. Elves and Dwarves were antipathetic toward each other, which was the category between neutrality and hatred.

-=Steve=-

 

[roguerouge]

I see the problem but imo thats not a problem of dragonborn but, sorry, your imagination..

Nice. Thank you for the condescension implicit in your ad hominem attack.

Thank you to the other poster, however, who went through and listed possible CULTURAL motivations. That was helpful. Also helpful would be to hear from players or DMs who've created living cultures based in the lizard races/classes.

 

[Derren]

Sorry, but we currently have next to no information about the dragonborn culture and its not even sure that the PHB will provide you with much information.
The culture of dragonborn (and with it the cultural motivations) depend currently only on your imagination.
You don't need a book which tells you where and how Dragonborn live. Considering that such information isn't availiable yet I had to assume that you can't imagine any culture for dragonborn.

 

[Wormwood]

edit: this comes out wrong every time I type it...so never mind!

 

[Derren]

And experiences. And prejudices.

How can you have experiences and prejudices with an fictional race which was created a few months and you have no information about them besides the name?

Sure you can say "In 3e there was so many dragon stuff, I have enough of it" but considering that you can shape the dragonborn to you liking and that the only thing liking them to dragons is their name I don't see how you can have prejudices about that race at this time.
Later, when you have seen the full writeup and maybe even cultural information about that race in the PHB I can understand such complains but not now when you only know their name, that they lay eggs and have scales.

 

[Wormwood]

How can you have experiences and prejudices with an fictional race which was created a few months and you have no information about them besides the name?

Because some people see Dragonborn and immediately latch on to races they are superficially similar to. So you have comparisons to lizardfolk and kobolds and draconians and dragons and whatever.

I think that's entirely premature, but it's what's going on.

edit: the OP's vignette immediately conjured images of the Dragonborn warrior as a Gorn or a Sleestak---based on nothing but sibilant fantasy lizard speech. At this point, the Dragonborn are little more than thematic Rorschach tests.

 

[TerraDave]

Of course: after Golden Wyvern Adept, they read pretty good.

 

[Driddle]

Driddle, your content free "humour" posts are starting to wear thin. Please desist

Thanks for that warning, P.S.! I've edited my original post to include material that seems to be in the vein of this thread. I hope it's appropriately "content"-like to satisfy public standards.