Eladrins, Tieflings, Dragonborn Too Far Outside Standard Fantasy?

[theNater]

...I can't think of a single classic fantasy story that involved eladrins, tieflings, or dragonborn...

I've been beaten to the punch on eladrin making up a goodly number of the elves in Lord of the Rings and dragonborn showing up in Dragonlance. The tieflings are a little rarer, and admittedly I can't come up with any characters that look the way tieflings do off the top of my head. However, I would like to mention The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley. The heroine is endowed with certain supernatural powers due to being descended(several times removed) from the "demons from the north". This is one book that I read some 10-15 years ago and was memorable enough that it came immediately to mind. You may count it classic or not as you wish.
In any case, I suspect that given a random sampling of fantasy stories, you would come up a pretty goodly number of part- or half-demon characters, and these are your tieflings.

...I resent them being included in the core races.

My experience with fantasy stories has usually been that when a character is half-monster, they usually go for something more monstrous than orcs for the monster part. Has your experience been different? If not, did you resent the inclusion of half-orcs in third edition?

The PHB should include the core elements that most if not all standard fantasy stories would include.

The only elements in most if not all fantasy stories are humans and magic(humans are in most stories of all kinds, and the presence of magic is what makes a story a fantasy story), both of which are included in the PHB. Did you mean to say that the PHB should include only those core elements? If so, can you please clarify how common a fantasy story element must be to be "standard"? Should it be in 90% of fantasy stories? 50%? 25%?

 

[Incenjucar]

The races I plan on introducing into my primary campaign include four-eyed chitinous things with vertical mouths and wrinkly joints, yuan-ti pureblood-esque things with long, swept-back ears (not sticking out like anime elves ), clawed humanoids with feathers for hair (including body hair, including on the females <3)...

And I'm designing classes that basically mutate the characters so they can have breath weapons or spit electric spiderwebs or whatnot as they so desire.

So suffice to say I think the current fantasy standards are incredibly dull, especially considering all the cool races you find in mythology.

I mean really, what's the point in sticking entirely to off-humans for more than three decades?

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Incenjucar/returnoffoureyes.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Incenjucar/tenunerandom1.jpg

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Here's hoping for the swift return of the Rogue Modron.

 

[Torchlyte]

I'm of the opinion that the standard fantasy races are dull and overused.

 

[Hussar]

How many of you feel that races such as Eladrins, Tieflings, and Dragonborn are too far beyond the scope of standard fantasy fare to be included as base races? Personally, I can't think of a single classic fantasy story that involved eladrins, tieflings, or dragonborn and I resent them being included in the core races.

As a GM, now I have to explain which parts of the PHB I am excluding wholesale and I really shouldn't have to do that. The PHB should include the core elements that most if not all standard fantasy stories would include. I think races such as those belong in splatbooks where they are not automatically assumed to be already a part of the game.

And I understand that there's not much we can do about it now, but I'm just wondering how many others feel the same way.

Before this goes any further, what do you consider stock fantasy?

Robert Aspirin, who just passed away recently, has some fantastic Tiefling style characters in his Myth series. While Aazh(sp) is strictly a demon in description, he'd work pretty well as a tiefling.

 

[Rechan]

The races I plan on introducing into my primary campaign include four-eyed chitinous things with vertical mouths and wrinkly joints, yuan-ti pureblood-esque things with long, swept-back ears (not sticking out like anime elves ), clawed humanoids with feathers for hair (including body hair, including on the females <3)...

And I'm designing classes that basically mutate the characters so they can have breath weapons or spit electric spiderwebs or whatnot as they so desire.

I like you.

 

[Incenjucar]

I like you.

<3

Transformation and physical manifestation are just such huge things in mythic structures, I can't imagine wanting to actively avoid a wide variety of options unless you had a "back to basics" thing going on.

I think it's why those "turn into half-dragons" classes were such a big hit, and why people put so much effort into playing weird things like Gelatinous Cube Wizards.

So much of fantasy is about being and becoming, not just strictly doing.

 

[MyISPHatesENWorld]

I think races such as those belong in splatbooks where they are not automatically assumed to be already a part of the game.

And I understand that there's not much we can do about it now, but I'm just wondering how many others feel the same way.

I don't care for Dragonborn and Tieflings, but I don't mind that they're in the PHB. I would prefer fewer of them in the standard fluff though.

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.

As far as the fluff, I'm not a big fan of every player character race needing to be a part of a significant population. If 4e is already considering the heroes to be special and different, there is no reason that they can't be a really rare half-demon or half-dragon or the result of a one-off pact or experiment or something rather than a member of an uncommon race. But, maybe intertwining the races into the standard fluff makes it harder for people to cut them out, which keeps the races in play where they can do their job of changing perceptions of what an acceptable PC race is.

So while I don't care for those two choices, I'm all for more more options down the road as a result if it works.

 

[Dunamin]

I think Eladrins, Tieflings, and Dragonborn are perfectly fine being in the Player's Handbook, even if they don't appeal so much to me, personally.

Personally, I can't think of a single classic fantasy story that involved eladrins, tieflings, or dragonborn and I resent them being included in the core races.

Really? You can't think of any stories with magic-focused elves, devil-/demon-tainted people, or dragon-people?
Offhand, I guess I'd point to Lords of the Rings for the first, general Asian fiction and poor video games for the second, and an abundance of Dragonlance books for the third.

 

[mjukglass]

Outside the scope of standard fantasy...

and gelatinous cubes are straight out of Tolkien... right

 

[cwhs01]

As a GM, now I have to explain which parts of the PHB I am excluding wholesale and I really shouldn't have to do that. The PHB should include the core elements that most if not all standard fantasy stories would include. I think races such as those belong in splatbooks where they are not automatically assumed to be already a part of the game.

I suspect that you aren't the only one annoyed that the 4e phb contains races/classes/feats/powers etc. that aren't purely tolkienesque, sword'n'sorcery stuff.
But being annoyed that you now have more material than you know what to do with is possibly a little irrational. imo and all that.

Playing in a campaign without ANY houserules as to material that is permissible or changed (even slightly) from the phb, is less than uncommon. Or so my gut instincts tell me (no i don't have statistics to back it up).

If you ar the GM it should not be that hard to say no to races you dislike. If youre playing in someone elses game, it might be a ltlle more tricky.