Eladrins, Tieflings, Dragonborn Too Far Outside Standard Fantasy?

[The Human Target]

Not me.

I read a LOT of fantasy novels. More than is strictly healthy, I'm sure.

And dwarves/elves/halflings/orcs are NOT "standard fantasy." You find them in two types of fantasy. 1) Homages to Tolkien, and 2) Homages to Dungeons and Dragons.

I love it when threads are answered correctly on the first page.

 

[SSquirrel]

Big difference between standard and classic.

Hell, wasn't the Monk a class in the 1e PHB? That's not very classic fantasy, and it was back when those classics you reference were, well, standard.

This whole discussion makes me think of a quote from Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth when talking about why they play in altered tunings (things like F#F#GGAA, CGDGBB, etc) rather than standard (EADGBE). "When you play in Standard, everything you play sounds, well, standard". Something pretty close to that. I'll take some shuffling of ideas over the same old thing any day. Esp considering everything else is coming, just isn't in the first books.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think one of the big complaints with Dragonborn is how much they cheapen dragons.

Dragons used to be these awe inspiring creatures of myth and power. In western mythology, they're creatures of evil, fire, poison, and pure brute strength, terrorizing entire kingdoms and destroy armies, often requiring a champion chosen by God, armed with holy relics, to defeat. In eastern mythology, dragons ARE the gods, identified with power beyond the conception of mortals. Traditionally in Dungeons and Dragons, dragons held the sort of "last boss" position, the thing you didn't even THINK about messing around with until you were very, very, very powerful.

In 4e, dragons are killable in your first few levels, and hey, look, there's one in your group!

Wyrmling Dragons. What are they? CR 3?

 

[Aaron L]

Personally, I think that Teiflings are a lame race, I can't stand any sot of "dragonpeople," and I consider Eladrin to be elves and the PHB "elves" to be some sort of generic fantasy "forest dweller." None of them will see the light of day in any game that I run.

I really despise the "20,000 varieties of sapient humanoid species with every member as an overblown stereotype of a certain aspect of human nature or historical human culture," which has become the norm in fantasy, and unfortunately especially in D&D. I find it especially stupid that, in the really poorly written tripe that passes for fantasy nowadays (and especially D&D based stories) only the human race has more than one culture or language, every member of a non-human race speaks the same language, and every different culture requires a specialized variety of the race (snow dwarves, desert gnomes, jungle halflings, Japanese katana elves, ad nauseam.) I think it's very cheesy and really drags the entire genre down.


3E got really bad about it with all the splatbooks with a new type of elf, dwarf, and lizardperson in it, and it got to the point of emulating poor anime (and I like anime, so this isn't a knee-jerk "D&D sucks because it's emulating anime" argument) or children's books more than any fantasy I've ever read... but I was able to ignore a good deal of it because it was relegated to splatbooks and supplements. However, 4E is making it impossible to ignore by making it a central element of the default setting and including dragonpeople and whatever-the-Hell Teiflings are supposed to represent in the main PHB, and I also find it fairly distasteful. It really makes me throw-up a little bit in my mouth.


However, I realize that I am free to ignore it, and if other people enjoy it, well, more power too them. Unfortunately, the big problem for me is that my DM is a really tight "whatever's in the PHB is written by God and altering it is blasphemy" type, and now, since it's in the PHB, it is now Gospel, and I have to like it or lump it. And I suspect that a lot of other people have this same problem, where it has to be accepted as default because it's in the PHB and their DMs aren't imaginative enough to create a setting for themselves.

I really wish things like dragonpeople and demonpeople would have been relegated to a specific setting. This is purely personal taste, I realize. But now, since they have been included in the PHB, I will be forced to gag myself from commenting on how stupid I think they are every time I play D&D, and for my first 4E game I will be the sole human in a party full of dragonpeople and demonpeople. Unfortunately, I have to either accept this or not be able to play at all. (Much as with a lot of 4E, because it's become near blasphemy to say that one prefers the way things were done in 3E nowadays.)

I really miss the days when elves were exotic.

 

[Incenjucar]

I really miss the days when elves were exotic.

The main thing is that there needs to be room for people who would like Humans to be exotic.

In my setting, the snakey people think humans are exotic and awesome because they're all warm to the touch and they have fuzz all over them which is just adorable!

If they were introduced to dwarves they would just spend hours playing with their beards.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Oh, so all that malarkey about divine challenges, divine spells, growing in power, and generally being justified and ancient counts as common. Right, then.

Oh come on, that was blatently tongue in cheek.

Or do I need more smilies?

St George wasn't level one. Or level three. He was epic leveled. Stop being obtuse.

 

[hong]

Oh come on, that was blatently tongue in cheek.

Or do I need more smilies?

St George wasn't level one. Or level three. He was epic leveled.

Prove it.

 

[Sashi]

I can understand why they're there - the wall between "standard" and "non-standard" races needs to be torn down in order to sell more race-themed splatbooks. Including a magical/extraplanar-themed race and non-mammalian race (with boobs) along with the "everything is core" concept may make DMs more accepting of new core content that contains other "non-standard" races.

STOP IT! The minis-heavy rules are not dedicated to getting you to spend thousands of dollars on minis, and the dragonborn/eladrin/tiefling are not some ploy to get you addicted to splatbooks.

The Dragonborn are in there because the 14 year old in my group saved up his allowance for three months so he could buy Races of the Dragon, because he wanted to play a dragonborn more than anything. Races of the Dragon and the 3.5 PHB are the only D&D books he owns.

As far as I'm concerned, including "fire breathing dragon dude" and "horned evil dude" is just as much a nod to the 14 year old "dude this is awesome" D&D player as not removing Elves or Dwarves is to the Grognards.

Not everything is a specific ploy to placate and/or manipulate you, sometimes it is aimed at manipulating a completely different demographic.

 

[theNater]

I really miss the days when elves were exotic.

I'm looking forward to that time, 20 or 30 years from now, when I hear someone say "I really miss the days when dragonborn were exotic."

Please bear in mind that there are people playing D&D now who were born after elves had become commonplace. They want a chance to play a character from an exotic new race, too.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Prove it.

He had been a wandering knight gallant who had spent lots of time questing and leveling before reaching the dragon. At the dragon, he showed signs of higher then heroic abilities; he used cleric buffs, fighter attacks, and was able to enchant a girdle to keep the beast meek and supplicant while being dragged to town. There he turned the entire city to his religion, and then slew it single handedly. Following that, the spring was blessed so as to cure all diseases.

Sounds pretty epic to me.