D&D (2024) Fate of the feral tiefling?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, but WotC won't take my books away, and just as importantly the new rules have the ability to use the old options.

Of course.

But WotC could also make the tiefling variants from SCAG and elsewhere part of what's in the 1D&D PHB write-up.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I mean, this Playtest shows an Orc that is obviously designed to change that approach, doesn't it? In fact, Orcs have been portrayed positively in TTRPGs and videogames since, like, about 2000, pretty reliably. Hell Shadowrun has a positive portrayal in 1989. WotC was been a stick-in-the-mud about it, and with 5E, actively tried to drag Orcs back to being analogous to racist stereotypes with Volo's. Then WotC realized they screwed up big, and are now trying to fix it. It's kind of late in the day, given Shadowrun understood this the "racist" take on Orcs was dumb 33 years ago (and that continued in the "Let's Fix D&D" RPG that was Earthdawn in 1993, which presented Orcs as just another race), and WotC's own Eberron showed it was dumb even in a kitchen-sink D&D setting 18 years ago. But I guess Mike Mearls (who took personal charge of Volo's) wanted to drag things back to an older place.

That's just nonsense though, as your own "fun-loving goofs" comment indicates. 80% of Tieflings, like, since 2E, have been played as characters who not particularly "edgy", let alone "angsty" - and indeed, you seem to unaware of what @Kobold Avenger mentioned, and which has long been true, which is that they've been the unofficial "LGBTQ" race - i.e. people who are LGBTQ have often chosen to play them. So sneering at them as "edgy losers" shows you're kind of misunderstanding why people play them pretty profoundly.

I've never actually seen a Tiefling played as particularly non-ironically edgy, when I think about it, despite having seen them regularly since 2E. In fact edgelords in D&D don't seem to pick the theoretically edgy races except maybe Shadar-Kai in 3E. Most Tieflings, Drow, Duergar and the like I've seen have been "against-type" characters (and not Drizzt-like "edgy loners", either). The only consistent thing I've seen from edgelords in D&D, in fact, is picking races with strong combat capabilities (particularly STR bonuses when that was a thing). I've seen human Fighters who were gigantic edgelords - hell that might even be the most common race/class combo for edgelords playing D&D (obviously that's a very small percentage of people playing human fighters overall, to be clear).

IME the edgelord race is aasimar.

 

[Umbran]

No, they have a choice of alternate abilities, including wings.

Those variant traits are not specific to the Feral line - they are also in the normal Tiefling listing as variants.

 

[Charlaquin]

The challenge with knowing how orcs will be portrayed from here on out is how closely tied they are to Gruumsh, about whom we know little at the moment. He was a more balanced figure in 4E, I believe (I noped out of that edition early on), but otherwise, he's been a figure of evil and unchecked violence.

I don't know that we're likely to get the gods in a UA, but it's valuable context that we're missing in this case.

I know WotC won’t do it, but I would prefer if more deities were depicted differently by different cultures. Gruumsh is a great candidate because to be quite honest, the lore behind the conflict between Gruumsh and the elven deities (and by extension, orcs and elves) is kinda… victim-blamey… Gruumsh is evil because he didn’t appreciate getting cheated out of a territory for his people? I think there’s room there for a more sympathetic take on Gruumsh in Orcish culture.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I wonder if winged tieflings are gone, though. A lot of dms struggle with pcs with flying speed, and new flying options haven’t been around since aarakokra, another fairly early option.

The other feral options of switched ASI are built in, and I’d bet either the PHB or DMG will discuss swapping spells as a way to further customize races that grant spells. But wings as a starting feature may be gone from 1DnD.

 

[MarkB]

I really miss the 4E tiefling designs. Much preferred the very devil-y look as opposed to "hot person with horns."

I prefer them as I first encountered them in Planescape Torment, with no totally specific appearance, their traces of fiendish nature manifesting in any of a variety of physical features. The more unified appearance portrayed from 4e onwards was a disappointment.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Those variant traits are not specific to the Feral line - they are also in the normal Tiefling listing as variants.

I think of them as feral traits because dumb D&D Beyond wouldn't unlock them for me without buying that subrace.

 

[Charlaquin]

I wonder if winged tieflings are gone, though. A lot of dms struggle with pcs with flying speed, and new flying options haven’t been around since aarakokra, another fairly early option.

Fairy was a pretty recent option with a native fly speed.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wonder if winged tieflings are gone, though. A lot of dms struggle with pcs with flying speed, and new flying options haven’t been around since aarakokra, another fairly early option.

Fairies and owlin are both recent races that fly.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Gruumsh is evil because he didn’t appreciate getting cheated out of a territory for his people? I think there’s room there for a more sympathetic take on Gruumsh in Orcish culture.

I think we're 3/4 of the way there already just with that summary. I've been thinking of writing up goblins and kobolds with more fleshed out cultural myths and they would have similar views of things. ("Yeah, I'm an 'invader' since you pushed us out of the mountains where we settled hundreds of years ago and keep trying to get back inside.")