Does anyone actually like Dragonborn and Tieflings?

[Nifft]

Hmm, what would be the stat modifiers for a living dungeon?

You're thinking too small, grasshopper!

Consider the stat modifiers of Living Greyhawk!

Mua-ha-ha, -- N

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The difference is this:

The only "Evil" connotation to Drizzt is "Well my race is evil. But I'm a warm fuzzy teddybear with scimitars. How about a hug."

Why play the Gentle Giant, whose only claim to "Ooh cool evil" is that he is of a race that is otherwise evil, when you can play something much darker with a better backstory that's easier for your DM to work into the story (because good drow are a lot harder to come by than tieflings).

Drizzt is a GOOD GUY. Tieflings are, to put it in older terms, CHAOTIC NEUTRAL guy.

So again I'll ask where the similarity is.

Well, first off, Chaotic Neutral doesn't exist anymore, remember?

Secondly, the PHB for Tieflings states that they're for people who want to overcome some inner darkness and still be a hero. You're saying that's not similer to Drizzt?

Tieflings aren't the CN guy. They're the "I'm so goth I crap bats. Now I'll BRB, gotta go angst in the corner, but DON'T JUDGE ME, I'M STILL GOOD!" guy.

Yeah, true. I was starting to read the synopsis of Princess Tutu, a story about a duck that transforms into a human ballerina and fights evil monsters by the time I finished the first links.

Dude, Princess Tutu is awesome. I'm not even kidding. It had everything set up to be mind numbingly bad, and somehow twisted it to be insanely cool.

 

[Kingskin]

Personally; I find the core races to be incredibly bland in 4th Ed. It just seems like lots of Elves and nothing much in between.
So you've got your standard races; humans, elves, dwarves and halflings. You can't really begrudge any of them, they really are essential to a generic fantasy game (much as I dislike elves I'll admit the game needs them to be what it is). But then you've got half-elves who are really only there for people that want to play humans but want the over-the-top bonuses that come with being an elf. Still, I suppose people expect them so they're in. I don't see the point of Eladrin whatsoever, they're too much like elves. Either combine the two into a single race or ditch one or t'other. Add tieflings on top (who seem to capture the angsty elf vote) and you've got a core roster which seems mostly elf.
The dragonborn I don't have such a problem with although they have the whole cliched alien-with-an-honour-system thing which makes you wonder when geekdom in general is going to get over klingons. I don't generally allow shaktar in SLA for the same reason, they're just not very inspiring when I read through the PHB. That being said, I don't think much of the 4th Ed fluff in general. But I don't want an edition war so I'll cut that train of thought off.
I'd rather have seen half-orcs and think the reason for ditching them is, frankly, pathetic (because somehow offscreen-interracial sex is worse than the in-your-face wholesale slaughter the game is built around) .
Anyway, it has given me the chance to play a full-blood orc when I re-imagined my character so I can't complain too bitterly.

One other thing: I find warforged to be the single most boring race I think I've come across in any game. Ever. If you want to play the Terminator, surely a sci-fi game is the best platform for that? And I know you can bring up the whole 'machine trying to find it's soul' argument but I've seen the extended edition of T2 and it made a good film. But most games aren't set up for the level of pathos (limited as it is, when you consider it) and it just comes across as something I would have loved when I was 12. I'm 29 now, and I like orcs.

 

[The Highway Man]

I googled it, and it sounds nothing like core D&D, to which I referred in my post.

That's not the point. Chimeres indeed has nothing to do with core D&D. If you're going to change the great wheel and such to make it more appealing, there would have been also ways in which you could have made dragons playable as PCs. Chimeres is just a non-D&D example on how to make dragons protagonists of the game.

People just claming that dragons cannot be playable from the get-go aren't pushing their imagination enough. That is my point.

 

[Barastrondo]

Tieflings aren't the CN guy. They're the "I'm so goth I crap bats. Now I'll BRB, gotta go angst in the corner, but DON'T JUDGE ME, I'M STILL GOOD!" guy.

If they were really that unappealing, nobody would have voted for "I like them" or "I love them." Trust me, I come off many a year of work with World of Darkness fans. I have unfailingly found that the actual gamers who gravitate toward dark trappings because they're shallow spotlight-seekers are outnumbered by the gamers who exult in shallow stereotypes about how anyone who would play a heroic character with dark trappings are shallow spotlight-seekers.

The problem is that the few shallow spotlight-seekers make a bad impression. Of course, so do the people accusing others of being shallow spotlight-seekers just because they filled in a word like "vampire" or "tiefling" on their character sheet.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

If they were really that unappealing, nobody would have voted for "I like them" or "I love them." Trust me, I come off many a year of work with World of Darkness fans. I have unfailingly found that the actual gamers who gravitate toward dark trappings because they're shallow spotlight-seekers are outnumbered by the gamers who exult in shallow stereotypes about how anyone who would play a heroic character with dark trappings are shallow spotlight-seekers.

The problem is that the few shallow spotlight-seekers make a bad impression. Of course, so do the people accusing others of being shallow spotlight-seekers just because they filled in a word like "vampire" or "tiefling" on their character sheet.

Thing is, even a large number of people who DO like the tieflings readily agree that they're meant for that emogoth audience. It doesn't matter if the number of people who dislike the dark trappings outnumber the number of people who are spotlight-seekers. What matters is, at least from what I and many others have seen, the number of people who love the dark trappings because they're spotlight seekers greatly outnumbers the NON-spotlight-seekers who like dark trappings.

 

[timbuktu]

Ive liked tieflings since Planescape, sort of a cool evil race at least better IMHO than a playble drow race.

As for Dragonborn I dont hate them. Ive never liked anthropomorphic animal like races. But its fantasy so whats the big deal. Although I did sort of like 3x half dragons.

 

[Barastrondo]

Thing is, even a large number of people who DO like the tieflings readily agree that they're meant for that emogoth audience.

I've never seen anyone use the term "emogoth" or any such similar made-up pseudo-derisive term in such a way that I felt they were making an accurate observation. I've only seen them used in emotional arguments. Of which there are certainly plenty on the Internet, particularly on this board over the last month or two.

It doesn't matter if the number of people who dislike the dark trappings outnumber the number of people who are spotlight-seekers. What matters is, at least from what I and many others have seen, the number of people who love the dark trappings because they're spotlight seekers greatly outnumbers the NON-spotlight-seekers who like dark trappings.

Your anecdotal experience does not match mine. I've found that people who are spotlight-seekers are in exactly the same proportion regardless of genre, having nothing to do with a preference for dark trappings. They argue for the right to play gnomes as irritating tricksters with "eccentric" names so that the other players are forced to constantly react to their "hijinks." They try to play characters who are More Virtuous than their fellows so that they can grab the spotlight for extended bouts of playing moral superiority. They play deckers so that they can take over the game session to show off with one-on-one roleplaying. They want to take part in published campaign settings so they can excoriate any other player (or indeed person on the internet) who doesn't share the same One True Vision of what the Only Setting Worth Playing In Is Like. They play wizards with outlandishly baroque powers so that they can have a special power to dramatically solve every situation.

Gamers who make melodramatic bids for the spotlight are, in fact, present for every single classification of character that you would care to write on your character sheet, and in pretty much the same proportion. The assumption that there's a greater number of them attracted to dark trappings — or that the ones attracted to dark trappings are any more annoying than the ones with any other particular favorite genre or means of acting out — is in my experience seventeen gallons of lukewarm hogwash.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The 'evil seeming but not necessarily evil inside' schtick is something I would associate more with younger players - teenagers and early twenties - but not spotlight hogs.

That doesn't mean I think it's a bad thing, quite the reverse, D&D needs to be attractive to all players from 8-80.

 

[Barastrondo]

The 'evil seeming but not necessarily evil inside' schtick is something I would associate more with younger players - teenagers and early twenties - but not spotlight hogs.

That doesn't mean I think it's a bad thing, quite the reverse, D&D needs to be attractive to all players from 8-80.

You should know that your sig made me stop, blink twice, then achieve happiness.