D&D 5E Goliaths WebDM Misses the Mark, but Sparks My Curiosity

[Don Durito]

I've always liked the idea of Goliaths - but they've always felt half-cooked.

And conceptually having Goliaths as a race that live far away in remote mountain ranges make them easy to include in a campaign setting - but it also makes them very easy to leave out. After all, as written, they don't have much impact on the game world at large. If you make them like the Aeil in Wheel of Time they can become more interesting (ie. in recent memory they swept down from their mountains and swept all before them, before, instead of staying to rule over conquered lands, they, mysteriously, turned around and went back to their homeland).

It doesn't help that the 5E half-orc basically stole their stuff mechanically.

The Rune Knight in Unearthed Arcana has made me more interested in playing a Goliath as it's a good fit conceptually and not yet another boring barbarian.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm also a fan of goliaths, for exactly the same reason. I don't tend to play them much, but I enjoy what they bring to the table. Personally, I'd take a goliath over a half-orc any day, for multiple reasons.
To extend the above analogy, goliaths are a subtle flavour in a sea of spicy dishes. Sure, nothing about them "pops", but sometimes it's nice playing a race that doesn't have over the top origins.
Humans are medium-normal, halflings are small-normal, and goliaths are large-normal.

That’s a really good way to put it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I've always liked the idea of Goliaths - but they've always felt half-cooked.

And conceptually having Goliaths as a race that live far away in remote mountain ranges make them easy to include in a campaign setting - but it also makes them very easy to leave out. After all, as written, they don't have much impact on the game world at large. If you make them like the Aeil in Wheel of Time they can become more interesting (ie. in recent memory they swept down from their mountains and swept all before them, before, instead of staying to rule over conquered lands, they, mysteriously, turned around and went back to their homeland).

It doesn't help that the 5E half-orc basically stole their stuff mechanically.

The Rune Knight in Unearthed Arcana has made me more interested in playing a Goliath as it's a good fit conceptually and not yet another boring barbarian.

My wife plays a Goliath Ranger/Druid with a mountain wolf that comes up to her midsection or something (modeled after the Northern Colorado Rocky Mountain Wolf, the biggest extant RL wolf species), called Thumi Stormstalker, with a Folk Hero background. She plays as deeply animistic, following not only animal and tree spirits and such, but also the spirits of the mountain range itself, and the northern winds, etc.

Her people fled a “privileged slave” life in the Giant controlled mountains, and live in the high mountain to maintain their relative solidarity. They don’t abandon the wounded or whatever (no one in my group has much respect for “bootstrap libertarianism”), but they do believe that every member of a clan has an obligation to help the clan thrive. They use cable-back bows, carry their yurts on their backs, some clans shepherd and train giant mountain goats and trade them with the other mountain folk, and their always inventing new games and perfecting old ones to compete in.

It’s a cool culture, that ends up different from a human culture in the same place would be due to different basic physical capabilities and in-born perspectives.

 

[Tallifer]

In my Eberron campaign, Giants are part of a fascinating mythology and long-lost civilization which has affected the player characters' stories and life as much as Dragons, such that Goliaths are equally compelling and important.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I think goliaths are fine. They're a good alternative to half-orc, which for a lot of people still carries some uncomfortable baggage. In my current Greyhawk campaign, I used goliaths for the frost barbarians. I reflavored them slightly to "primitive human tribes that rumor says once crossed with giants".

 

[Charlaquin]

Okay, last time I’ll say it, hopefully.

Nowhere have I said, nor would I ever say, that any given race is just their most obvious theme. I did not say that Minotaur are just bull people.

I said that they are bull people who are born from a demon prince, and that that is unavoidable when viewing them. This is a wholly separate statement from “Minotaur are just bull people.”

I’m not... seeing anyone trying to suggest you made such a claim...?

I mean, I can understand what it’s like to think a race is boring. Hobgoblins, IMO, add nothing to the game and are almost unsalvageably boring.

Meanwhile, I just find goblins less interesting than bugbears. Doesn’t mean their boring, they’re just not as interesting to me as bugbears.

I can understand how someone could see Goliaths like goblins, but I can’t see how anyone could see them like hobgoblins.

Without better understanding what specifically you dislike about hobgoblins, this doesn’t mean a lot to me.

Idk, closest I can figure is that it’s the lore flavor equivalent of people who eat so much ultra hot food that they then claim that anything without a decent amount of hot pepper spice is “literally flavorless”.

Thats a pretty good analogy. To many people, Goliaths are bland. Not flavorless, just lacking in distinguishing flavor. I can see how that might be appealing, but to many people the idea that you like it because its a mild flavor could seem very strange.

Like, a race doesn’t need to be born from evil gods or demon princes to be interesting.

For many people a race needs some kind of deep lore to be interesting. It doesn’t have to be evil gods or demon lords, but some kind of history that ties them intricately to the setting.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’m not... seeing anyone trying to suggest you made such a claim...?

several posts have reponded the notion that those races are nothing more than whatever theme or element. Doing so suggests that someone has claimed they are nothing more. Doing so without replying directly to another post in the thread suggests a response to the OP.

Without better understanding what specifically you dislike about hobgoblins, this doesn’t mean a lot to me.

welcome to my world?

But seriously, they’re just boring. I don’t dislike them, I just can’t find a single thing about them to be remotely interested in.

Thats a pretty good analogy. To many people, Goliaths are bland. Not flavorless, just lacking in distinguishing flavor. I can see how that might be appealing, but to many people the idea that you like it because its a mild flavor could seem very strange.


For many people a race needs some kind of deep lore to be interesting. It doesn’t have to be evil gods or demon lords, but some kind of history that ties them intricately to the setting.

What does that even mean? How are dwarves ties intricately to the setting?

 

[Charlaquin]

several posts have reponded the notion that those races are nothing more than whatever theme or element. Doing so suggests that someone has claimed they are nothing more. Doing so without replying directly to another post in the thread suggests a response to the OP.

Alright. I must be overlooking those posts, or misinterpreting them.

welcome to my world?

But seriously, they’re just boring. I don’t dislike them, I just can’t find a single thing about them to be remotely interested in.

Well, some folks (Jim Davis included, apparently) feel similarly about Goliaths.

What does that even mean? How are dwarves ties intricately to the setting?

Umm...

Dwarf

A dwarf (pl: dwarves) was a member of a natural humanoid race common throughout parts of Toril as well as Abeir.. Dwarves, sometimes called the Stout Folk and Deep Folk, were a tough, tradition-abiding folk known for their strong martial traditions and beautiful craftsmanship. Dwarves were a...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

In particular, check out the “society” and “history” sections.

 

[Don Durito]

Alright. I must be overlooking those posts, or misinterpreting them.


Well, some folks (Jim Davis included, apparently) feel similarly about Goliaths.

Umm...

Dwarf

A dwarf (pl: dwarves) was a member of a natural humanoid race common throughout parts of Toril as well as Abeir.. Dwarves, sometimes called the Stout Folk and Deep Folk, were a tough, tradition-abiding folk known for their strong martial traditions and beautiful craftsmanship. Dwarves were a...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

In particular, check out the “society” and “history” sections.

That's just Forgotten Realms, however. (And even then, they're not all that present. Gold Dwarves were always far away in the south (although god know's what's going on with that now). If you were playing in the north Dwarves were present everywhere - but elsewhere, dwarves were about as present as you want them to be. (Of course that's much better than Goliaths - as far as I'm aware there's no official ruling about which mountains in Faerun you'd even find them in.)

Dwarves are in a different position. They have the whole weight of history behind them so they're usually allowed. And they come with a whole lot of setting baggage. If a setting has Dwarves they usually have a mountain fortress somewhere where they dig for gold and people trade with them. There's certain common assumptions about what people know about Dwarves. If someone makes up a homebrew setting they've usually given some sort of consideration to where dwarves live. (Although at a certain point I just lost interest and decided that if someone wants to play a dwarf then they exist as refugees in human society having lost their ancestral homelands because they dug to deep, and if no one wanted to play a Dwarf then they don't exist.)

But Goliaths are hidden away. They're not in the core book, they're not particularly mechanical appealing either, and their whole culture is only written with certain classes clearly in mind. (And playing against type is less fun when people don't have all that clear a conception of the type you're playing against.)

They're easy to include - chances are that if you really want to play one, many, perhaps most, GMs will say yes. There's probably a mountain range somewhere they can come from. But odds are the GM hasn't thought to given you something extra to work with. It's far more likely the GM will say, in this setting" Dwarves are X", or "Elves are Y", which might inspire you and give you the hint that this character will be well integrated into setting developments.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Dwarf

A dwarf (pl: dwarves) was a member of a natural humanoid race common throughout parts of Toril as well as Abeir.. Dwarves, sometimes called the Stout Folk and Deep Folk, were a tough, tradition-abiding folk known for their strong martial traditions and beautiful craftsmanship. Dwarves were a...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

In particular, check out the “society” and “history” sections.

Okay?
Goliaths have a whole society description too. Are you saying that being tied intricately to the setting just means...the race, as a race, has changed the course of history of the setting at some point?
So, halflings and gnomes In FR aren’t tied intricately to the setting?