Dragonborn in Faerun

[EzekielRaiden]

The mild annoyance of resisting the Default is a mild annoyance you didn't have to deal with back in 2006, and it's not like people COULDN'T play dragon-people back then, it's just that resisting the default fell on THEIR shoulders, not YOURS. You made the minor effort to include them if you wanted, and you didn't have to make the minor effort to exclude them if you didn't want them (and saying YES! to ideas always feels better than saying NO!). No one was banned, but it was opt-in, not opt-out.

I don't really have much to say to most of your post, it's pretty fair. But...in my--relatively limited--experience, "opt-in" is not meaningfully different from "banned." Perhaps it's a matter of speaking up about it, but the number of DMs I've known who say they allowed their players to opt into obscure, late-publication, or third-party supplements can be counted on one hand. And I've been a regular member of forums--these and others--for many years now. That's...a highly un-inspiring track record. And the number of people who sharply delineate what they do and don't allow, down to the level of "all members of class X have alignment Y, and I don't let people play Y in my games so good luck playing one of them..." is easily 3x to 4x as big. Easily.

It's also a little hard to buy that they somehow have players CONSTANTLY asking for things they don't want to allow. (And really, if you get someone bugging you about it literally every game, maybe that's some evidence that it's well-loved and you should think about it even if you don't like it?)

I know for a fact I always hesitate bringing up supplemental or third-party material--just because I know, no matter how low-power and well-balanced and scrupulously checked it is, every DM is going to inspect it carefully...with jade glasses on.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But...in my--relatively limited--experience, "opt-in" is not meaningfully different from "banned." Perhaps it's a matter of speaking up about it, but the number of DMs I've known who say they allowed their players to opt into obscure, late-publication, or third-party supplements can be counted on one hand.

I don't doubt that mirrors other players' experiences, too. The overall takeaway, I think, is that defaults matter (even when they shouldn't really matter that much, since D&D is, ostensibly, a game about telling the stories YOU want to tell). The Default Effect is in full swing within D&D. Opt In vs. Opt Out is something that still affects a LOT of tables. The publishers of D&D have the complex job of determining what "default" is, when given options that aren't necessarily better or worse, but a trade-off.

It's also a little hard to buy that they somehow have players CONSTANTLY asking for things they don't want to allow. (And really, if you get someone bugging you about it literally every game, maybe that's some evidence that it's well-loved and you should think about it even if you don't like it?)

It's less individual players that the perception of what the game is pushing. I think WotC had mentioned at one point that in the DDI data, with all of 4e's diverse racial choices, that elves and dwarves and humans and halfling still dominated, so I don't think there were many folks out there who were like I REALLY WANT TO PLAY A DRAGONBORN and just would not take a simple "no" for an answer.

It was more like the game itself - the people writing and publishing it - kept saying "Hey, don't you really want to play a dragonborn? I MEAN LOOK! Here's one! They're cool. Here's another! So awesome. Here's a BOOK about 'em! We've spent a lot of time on them! See that guy on the cover? So neat. You should probably play one!" To someone with zero interest in dragonborn, and who didn't have to put up with them a few years ago, that might just be a mental load they feel like they don't need, and I could see how that can be annoying, at lest to the same level as people annoyed by 3e's dungeonpunk look or 5e's little-footed halflings (and then perhaps inflated by the Edition War).

I know for a fact I always hesitate bringing up supplemental or third-party material--just because I know, no matter how low-power and well-balanced and scrupulously checked it is, every DM is going to inspect it carefully...with jade glasses on.

I think it's unfortunate that you hesitate! The more people that come out and ask for stuff to be included in the game that they're interested in, the easier it'll be for others. They might say "no," but you never know until you try! And if you're cool with presuming "no," I don't imagine getting told "no" will be much worse - it could only be better!

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I will say I have no problem with Dragonborn, but I am really bored with the whole Tolkein-esque type of thing going around.

Originally Posted by Ilbranteloth
If the party was a drow, a duergar, a high elf, a minotaur, a dragonborn and a tiefling, that would bother me.

I don't know about you, but that sounds amazing. I mean, one of the campaigns I follow had a frog, a human, a kobold, a myconid and a tengu team up to defeat, well, possibly evil, possibly just anything in their way. And it works.

OK, I agree that it could be great fun in and of itself. But it wouldn't work for me in my Forgotten Realms campaign.

So I was thinking about it a bit more, and here's what ultimately is driving my decisions here.

Go back to the middle of the 2nd Edition - I'd been running and building my version of the Forgotten Realms off of Ed Greenwood's writings along with the published materials. There were a lot of published materials. By this time we had moved past trying other game systems (I've played and run games in most of the systems that were released from the late '70's to the mid '90's.

I literally owned every bit of published material for D&D - all editions. BECMI, AD&D, OD&D, including third party supplements, magazines, etc. I had compiled the rules we used, which included most mechanics that were released in the various magazines, stole some mechanics from other settings, and any Realms specific material from any source. In recompiling I also tweaked to fix contradictions, conflicts, some balance issues, etc. I had compiled a complete timeline, updated with our campaign information, lists of the languages, coins, etc. pulled from all of the various sources. I (really we) allowed almost any race, class, kit, etc. that we felt made sense in the Realms, regardless of source.

In the meantime, we also played in the other published campaign worlds, some more than others. We tried Spelljammer (didn't much care for it), Planescape (very cool), Ravenloft (very cool), Greyhawk (like going home at the time, since it was the basis of my pre-Realms campaigns), Dragonlance (never really cared for the lore, although Leaves from Inn of the Last Home was a great supplement, Dark Sun (very cool), etc. There were so many at that time - Known World, Red Steel, Council of Dragons. We played in each one as they came out, and sometimes went back after trying them out.

Some of these were with Reams characters, some as new characters. What made the other campaigns so much fun is that they all had their own specific flavor. Playing in Athas was vastly different than Krynn, Grayhawk, Faerun, or even Zakhara, Maztica, Malatra, Kara-Tur, and other 'Realms' settings. The races, classes, monsters, magic and lore all work together to build each world.

As time went on, since the Realms was viewed by the marketing and design teams as 'something for everyone' and from time-to-time has been the default campaign setting, more and more material was dumped into the Realms. So I started limiting or not allowing in my campaign things that were drastically out-of-flavor for the world we had been collectively building for about a decade. By the 4th Edition, it reached it's worst stage where it seems to have been decided that all of the 'core' races, classes, and such would apply to all settings (although this proved not to be the case for Dark Sun). They changed the cosmology, and basically started 'officially' removing anything that made the worlds unique and different. So there was a lot of material that I ignored or didn't incorporate.

In addition, the 4th edition campaign settings came out. The general concept of the Spellplague I was OK with, but not the large scale destruction, at least the way it was handled. Our longest running campaign had largely completed, and most of the players had moved, by the time the 4th edition hit. The story lines that were running were completed, but some had ramifications, even 100 years later when the 4th edition campaign setting picked up. Like many people I wasn't happy about the jump in time, but I could make it work since we weren't in the middle of something larger. The elven characters, of course, were the common thread among characters, but others had impacts too.

My interpretation of what the events of the Spellplague and its effects is part of what drives me in what to include and what not to. Since the 5th edition has largely undone the biggest issues, I can safely ignore many of them altogether, and work the others into the ongoing lore.

Which leads me to things like the dragonborn, returned Abeir, geographical locations that entirely disappeared, etc. Perhaps if my group and I had been more active during the 4th edition, and had fully incorporated all of the changes it would be different. But that's not what happened. Instead, I have a campaign world with a very specific feel and flavor, that has been developed over 28+ years. It started as a variant Greyhawk campaign, incorporating stuff from other sources, but leaning heavily on Ed Greenwood's articles in Dragon. Once the campaign set came out, it shifted to its proper home.

Because of the nature of these two campaign worlds, it has a heavy Tolkien influence. The mix of races, classes, monsters and magic are unique and different than the other worlds to me. If I had the time, and people who were interested, I might very well run a campaign again in Athas or Greyhawk in particular. Zakhara was also a lot of fun, partially because the setting was so well thought out and the components worked really, really well together. Like Ravenloft and Athas, it has a very unique feel that's immediately evident. It's very easy to blur the line between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, as they are both Tolkienesque fantasy settings, with many similar elements.

So for me, when running a campaign, the feel of the world is very important to me. That may not be evident or even occur to people who started D&D later, particularly the 4th edition, because the push was for everything to be in play all of the time. Among other examples given with cylons in Star Wars, I think the bigger example would be adding a jedi wookie to a game set in the Star Trek universe alongside Kirk and Spock. Could it be fun? Absolutely. And if that's your interest, go for it. But it doesn't 'fit'.

I have no doubt that the feel of the Forgotten Realms to a group that started playing in the Forgotten Realms through video games and the 4th edition is very, very different than mine. That's great. It's just not what you're likely to find at my table. I can't tell you about that lore, or how it all came to be. But if/when you meet Cris Ilbranteloth, Tomas Marois, Wu-Han, Bronn, Skyseer, and Drial Blackblade. I can fill you in with all sorts of lore. Because I was there when that history was written.

And the 5th edition dragonborn and tiefliengs (actually it goes back to changes made in 3.5) don't fit in my Forgotten Realms. It doesn't mean they can't fit in any Forgotten Realms. And yes, I could make them fit. I just don't want to.

So the party of drow, a duergar, a high elf, a minotaur, a dragonborn and a tiefling, along with the frog, human, kobold, myconid and a tegu will have to wait for when I run a different campaign.

Ilbranteloth

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Let me guess. You're under 30? Progress =/= better. Plenty of historical evidence for that, too. So before deriding is old fogies, adress the arguments.

There's a reason that Tolkein is the touchstone and that even anti-fantasists like George R. R. Martin (Notice the extra R as the homage?) respect him.

Yeah, no. We are not, in any way, obligated to give a damn about Tolkien while playing games, or writing fantasy, for that matter. The origins of a thing are useful for understanding it, but they are absolutely not something to abide by, or feel beholden to when making new things.

And if you honestly don't think that the fact (yes, fact) that people tend to get set in their ways and resist change as a default position, I can't imagine what world you live in, but it isn't this one. Traditionalism is a distressingly common mindset, and it leads people to assume a no change without very compelling reasons mentality, which is strictly a bad thing.

And pretty much no one thinks that change is always good, but progress is, in a cultural/social context, literally positive change, in a "forward" direction. Ie, toward egalitarianism, fairness, and a better world in general. In tech, progress is change that improves the technology in some way.

So, while one can imagine progress (which is a distinct term from change) that leads to bad things, in general progress is better than stagnation.

also, nearly every time someone has had an example of "bad progress", in my experience, it's been some nonsense about the soviet union, that actually has nothing at all to do with progress, and is just radical change, usually going backward, or claiming progress while doing pretty much what the old boss did with a new paint job. Well, and there's the people who think that segregation was good and the nation has gone downhill since women got the vote, but I just assume no one on here is in that camp.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Let me guess. You're under 30? Progress =/= better. Plenty of historical evidence for that, too. So before deriding is old fogies, adress the arguments.

There's a reason that Tolkein is the touchstone and that even anti-fantasists like George R. R. Martin (Notice the extra R as the homage?) respect him.

Yeah, no. We are not, in any way, obligated to give a damn about Tolkien while playing games, or writing fantasy, for that matter. The origins of a thing are useful for understanding it, but they are absolutely not something to abide by, or feel beholden to when making new things.

And if you honestly don't think that the fact (yes, fact) that people tend to get set in their ways and resist change as a default position, I can't imagine what world you live in, but it isn't this one. Traditionalism is a distressingly common mindset, and it leads people to assume a "no change without very compelling reasons" mentality, which is strictly a bad thing.

And pretty much no one thinks that change is always good, but progress is, in a cultural/social context, literally positive change, in a "forward" direction. Ie, toward egalitarianism, fairness, and a better world in general. In tech, progress is change that improves the technology in some way.

So, while one can imagine progress (which is a distinct term from change) that leads to bad things, in general progress is better than stagnation.

also, nearly every time someone has had an example of "bad progress", in my experience, it's been some nonsense about the soviet union, that actually has nothing at all to do with progress, and is just radical change, usually going backward, or claiming progress while doing pretty much what the old boss did with a new paint job. Well, and there's the people who think that segregation was good and the nation has gone downhill since women got the vote, but I just assume no one on here is in that camp.


and to be clear, I love JRRT. I've read everything published while he was alive (and every word of every appendix contained therein) and a lot of what Chris has published, from the trilogy and the Hobbit, to the Silmarillion, to everything in the Reader, his Beowulf, etc. I've written fanfic, played plenty of game sessions in Arda, between homebrewed dnd and more recently the One Ring rpg by cubicle 7. I know who the Noldor are and where Arnor was, and I wish my mind was retentive enough to challenge Stephen Colbert on the subject.

But none of that love and respect for the man and his work, and the fact he essentially invented what we now think of as fantasy fiction, means that I'm beholden to him when telling fantasy stories.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

True that, I'm in my mid-30s and I honestly couldn't care less about Tolkien. He was a rather boring writer in my opinion and the only good thing about him is that his stories influenced Gygax, and whoever else worked on DnD, to create the game. I'm all for games with elves, humans, halfings, and dwarves, but I'm also happy to add in other races into my games.

Ouch. It always hurts a little when someone calls JRRT boring. Otherwise I agree

 

[Hussar]

I don't understand the idea that if players tend to pick something, it can't also be rare in the game world.

I play mostly force users in my buddy's star wars campaigns, which are set during the rebellion era. Force users are extremely rare in those campaigns. The fact that I usually play one, or the fact that in some of those campaigns we have a group with 2 or more force users, does not in any way change the fact that they are rare. We just happen to be playing the vanishingly few force users there are.

There is no reason that good drow, civilized orcs, or any other options described as rare shouldn't work the same. or spellfire, for that matter.

Sure, it's rare. And ted likes to play that specific very rare character a lot. Ok. So ted plays a thing that is rare. What is the issue?

The thing is, there's a difference between setting and campaign. If the setting says X is rare, but, the campaign has X, then, in that campaign anyway, X is no longer rare.

IME, what generally happens is this. Player chooses to play something rare, in this case a Dragonborn. So, the first time the PC's meet NPC's, the NPC's cry a shocked, "What the Hell is that?" and an interesting role play moment occurs as the PC's and the NPC's interact and the rarity of the Dragonborn PC is discussed. No problems.

But, then the PC's meet another NPC a while later and again it's, "What the Hell is that?" and you have another role play moment.

However, those role play moments tend to lose their lustre after the fifteenth time. As a 6' 2" white dude living in an Asian country, I can tell you for a fact that that conversation loses a LOT of lustre after the 300th time. So, the issue gets lampshaded because it's no fun anymore. At that point, being a Rare X is no longer a campaign issue. We stop dealing with it, even though, realistically, we should be having this same conversation with every new NPC, but, having the same interaction over and over again is boring.

And Rare X, in this case our Dragonborn character is no longer rare - it's common as any elf or halfling because, beyond this point, no one bothers to comment on it again.

If you don't care, then fair enough, no problem, but, it does mean that by playing X, the campaign is pretty much taking the concept of "X is rare" largely off the table. It gives a very skewed view of the setting. As was mentioned, the Drow, Minotaur, intelligent blob group should be a major issue wandering around the Realms. it really should be. But, after the second or third time, it stops being fun, and it stops being an issue. Repeat this over many campaigns, and people have a view of the Realms that the Realms is this huge melting pot of weird races that all get along and every bar in Waterdeep is a scene from the Cantina.

Playing a rare X, whatever that rare is, changes how the group views that setting.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The thing is, there's a difference between setting and campaign. If the setting says X is rare, but, the campaign has X, then, in that campaign anyway, X is no longer rare.

IME, what generally happens is this. Player chooses to play something rare, in this case a Dragonborn. So, the first time the PC's meet NPC's, the NPC's cry a shocked, "What the Hell is that?" and an interesting role play moment occurs as the PC's and the NPC's interact and the rarity of the Dragonborn PC is discussed. No problems.

But, then the PC's meet another NPC a while later and again it's, "What the Hell is that?" and you have another role play moment.

However, those role play moments tend to lose their lustre after the fifteenth time. As a 6' 2" white dude living in an Asian country, I can tell you for a fact that that conversation loses a LOT of lustre after the 300th time. So, the issue gets lampshaded because it's no fun anymore. At that point, being a Rare X is no longer a campaign issue. We stop dealing with it, even though, realistically, we should be having this same conversation with every new NPC, but, having the same interaction over and over again is boring.

And Rare X, in this case our Dragonborn character is no longer rare - it's common as any elf or halfling because, beyond this point, no one bothers to comment on it again.

If you don't care, then fair enough, no problem, but, it does mean that by playing X, the campaign is pretty much taking the concept of "X is rare" largely off the table. It gives a very skewed view of the setting. As was mentioned, the Drow, Minotaur, intelligent blob group should be a major issue wandering around the Realms. it really should be. But, after the second or third time, it stops being fun, and it stops being an issue. Repeat this over many campaigns, and people have a view of the Realms that the Realms is this huge melting pot of weird races that all get along and every bar in Waterdeep is a scene from the Cantina.

Playing a rare X, whatever that rare is, changes how the group views that setting.

My experience with playing rare stuff bears no relationship with that, and it's not because my group and I "don't care".

Thing is, non mundane stuff isn't rare, when taken as a whole, in the Realms. Any given individual part may be, but as a whole, not so much.

Look at it this way. Rather than looking at a tall white guy in a fairly monolithic Asian country, the dragonborn is like a Sikh in the full traditional garb, dagger and bracelets and turban and rad beard and all, wandering into a bar in the US, in a town with no Sikh population, but in general a diverse demographical makeup. Does the Sikh turn some heads? Sure, most people in the bar have never met one. Depending on the bar, someone might make a rude and ignorant comment about people from the Middle East. If a backward enough place, people might even generally mistake the man for a Muslim, and due to rabid mouth frothing racist idiocy, treat him poorly.

But, the reactions are not going to be the same as they would if the same man walked into an establishment in boot scoot Nebraska, circa 1950. (and now I have "Boot Scootin Boogie" stuck in my head...I hate that song)

FR has been for some time a place where there are plenty of non human, even non Tolkien, people running around in enough places, killing monsters and running bakeries and what have you, that while a person of an unknown race, obviously from a far off land will attract notice, it's nothing on the order of a teifling walking into the Prancing Pony.

In other words, there are plenty of ways to deal with players playing things which are rare in the game world, without it going the way you've described.

edit: and without losing the "stranger in a strange land" vibe.
But also, if a group doens't want to deal with that, and just wants to assume that dragonborn are well known enough that people don't really freak out or even stare much, and just get's treated like a foreigner, at worst, that's fine. The point of playing a dragonborn isn't to play a stranger in a strange land for everyone. For many people, it's about things entirely unrelated to that, in any way.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The thing is, there's a difference between setting and campaign. If the setting says X is rare, but, the campaign has X, then, in that campaign anyway, X is no longer rare.

IME, what generally happens is this. Player chooses to play something rare, in this case a Dragonborn. So, the first time the PC's meet NPC's, the NPC's cry a shocked, "What the Hell is that?" and an interesting role play moment occurs as the PC's and the NPC's interact and the rarity of the Dragonborn PC is discussed. No problems.

But, then the PC's meet another NPC a while later and again it's, "What the Hell is that?" and you have another role play moment.

However, those role play moments tend to lose their lustre after the fifteenth time. As a 6' 2" white dude living in an Asian country, I can tell you for a fact that that conversation loses a LOT of lustre after the 300th time. So, the issue gets lampshaded because it's no fun anymore. At that point, being a Rare X is no longer a campaign issue. We stop dealing with it, even though, realistically, we should be having this same conversation with every new NPC, but, having the same interaction over and over again is boring.

And Rare X, in this case our Dragonborn character is no longer rare - it's common as any elf or halfling because, beyond this point, no one bothers to comment on it again.

If you don't care, then fair enough, no problem, but, it does mean that by playing X, the campaign is pretty much taking the concept of "X is rare" largely off the table. It gives a very skewed view of the setting. As was mentioned, the Drow, Minotaur, intelligent blob group should be a major issue wandering around the Realms. it really should be. But, after the second or third time, it stops being fun, and it stops being an issue. Repeat this over many campaigns, and people have a view of the Realms that the Realms is this huge melting pot of weird races that all get along and every bar in Waterdeep is a scene from the Cantina.

Playing a rare X, whatever that rare is, changes how the group views that setting.

Alternatively, this sort of "boring but everpresent" thing could be represented in a different way, as the game moves forward. DM makes, say, a percentile or d20 check on the "village reaction table." Get lucky, and this village is not only tolerant, but welcoming--nobody bats an eye or makes an off-color comment, you're treated to exactly the same reaction (skeptical, congenial, or otherwise) as any other stranger/customer/helping hand. Get unlucky, and it's torches-and-pitchforks time unless the situation can be smoothed over--which may or may not be possible. Slightly less unlucky, and your presence has subtle but meaningful impact even without playing it out: women and children (and perhaps even men!) cross the street to avoid you, conversation in a crowded establishment goes silent when you enter and everyone watches you, bartenders take inordinate amounts of time washing glasses without paying attention to you, guards take you aside and make sure you know what's up/that they're "keeping an eye on you." In the middle ground, you might get things like a constable saying, "You're a credit to your people, son" or the farmer you just helped saying, "I don't care what people say about you, you're a stand up gal."

Not only does this help to reinforce that some places are prone to disliking/rejecting "other-ness," it also opens up avenues for unexpected challenges for the party ("Sorry, don't care what ye call yerself, Paladin or Warlock or Pelor-knows-what, ain't lettin' no demon-horn freak inter THIS town!"), additional lines of inquiry ("Oh, you're wunna them our-cozy-uns, ain'tcha? New t'town? Better check in wit the Assemblage, yeah? Ain't much ter look at but you lot take care'a yer own."), and character development for both PCs and NPCs.

Or, in other words: Constantly playing through the exact same reaction every time, not so fun. Having a general idea of how the town feels? Useful. If it further forks off into how the individual NPCs feel, that's even better: perhaps every character makes their own roll on that table, with a modifier based on the town average reaction (or, alternatively, particular average-town-reactions direct you to one of a set of secondary tables for individual people and their reactions). Then you can have a town that's flagrantly racist, but not quite torches-and-pitchforks, and still end up randomly rolling a far more egalitarian shopkeeper.

 

[Hussar]

But, even randomize get it wont change things in the long run. Eventually you'll be running through the same scenario multiple times. The might be spaced further apart but they're essentially the same.

And, again IME, this sort of thing gets left by the wayside after a few times simply because it's a PITA to deal with it every time. It derails the game more often than it adds anything.