Ecology of the Dragonborn up

[garyh]

As long as I am playing in that campaign setting, any new rule set needs to fit it, not the other way around. 3E was no problem to get adapted. 4E could be adapted as well, once it has more options than the pitifully few classes, feats, skills and powers in the first PHB. Dragonborn, however, don't have a place in my campaign - they serve no purpose, and their entire background does not fit.

Expecting a new set of rules to fit long-running campaigns built under different rules seems a bit much. I seem to recall similar complaints about sorcerers when 3e came out. In such cases, your options are pretty much:

1 - Don't allow the new option - "race or class just doesn't exist here, sorry"

2 - Pretend the new thing has always existed off-screen - "oh, yeah, there have always been those who use untamed arcane magic, there's just so few you've never seen them"... "The dragonborn have arrived from the across the ocean, seeking X, Y, and Z in our lands"

3 - Create a campaign-changing event to explain the new options - "The dragon god was killed, and with its last thought, it create the dragonborn to continue its work" or "the Spellplague did it. Now, moving on 100 years..."

All of these are valid options.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

A whole bunch of stuff

No, it's not the same issue, because dwarves aren't dragon people. You're trying to muddle the issue by introducing completely off set crap while insulting me at the same time. Dwarves don't have the WOWEE! factor of Dragonborn, so they don't NEED to be extremely different. Or are you telling me you honestly don't see the difference between dwarves and dragon people?

 

[IanArgent]

No, it's not the same issue, because dwarves aren't dragon people. You're trying to muddle the issue by introducing completely off set crap while insulting me at the same time. Dwarves don't have the WOWEE! factor of Dragonborn, so they don't NEED to be extremely different. Or are you telling me you honestly don't see the difference between dwarves and dragon people?

For anything but the physical, no, not really. They're both creatures of myth and legend. They both tend to focus on a handful of human traits. And neither of them are interfertile with humans (Dark Sun excepted).