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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9016735" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Ok, let's look at D&amp;D settings.&nbsp; You'll note that until the introduction of Dragonborn and Tieflings to the PHB, you'll notice the PHB races* exist in almost every setting as a major race.&nbsp; Not all settings, of course (Athas lacks Gnomes, Krynn has pseudo-Halflings), but the majority of them do.If we switched from &quot;what is common&quot; to &quot;what is popular&quot;, that has an impact on these settings. Whether that's massive or barely noticeable in the end isn't really the point; but instead, if I tried to sell people a PHB with, say, Owlin, Centaurs, Vedalken, Shadar-Kai, Firbolgs, and Hobgoblins, I think there would be a lot of outrage about how &quot;this isn't my D&amp;D&quot;, lol.So even if the classic races are kind of boring and staid, it's hard to imagine the game without them as foundational player options- it would require very different and new settings.&nbsp; And I'm not saying that's a bad thing for the game, but it's definitely an issue from a marketing standpoint.We only have to look at 4e shunting Gnomes out of the PHB, or the current hub-bub about Half-Elves and Half-Orcs to see that.*I know we're changing this to species, and I don't have any real problem with that, but I've been calling them races for a long time, so it's hard to stop, lol.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9016735, member: 6877472"] Ok, let's look at D&D settings. You'll note that until the introduction of Dragonborn and Tieflings to the PHB, you'll notice the PHB races* exist in almost every setting as a major race. Not all settings, of course (Athas lacks Gnomes, Krynn has pseudo-Halflings), but the majority of them do. If we switched from "what is common" to "what is popular", that has an impact on these settings. Whether that's massive or barely noticeable in the end isn't really the point; but instead, if I tried to sell people a PHB with, say, Owlin, Centaurs, Vedalken, Shadar-Kai, Firbolgs, and Hobgoblins, I think there would be a lot of outrage about how "this isn't my D&D", lol. So even if the classic races are kind of boring and staid, it's hard to imagine the game without them as foundational player options- it would require very different and new settings. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing for the game, but it's definitely an issue from a marketing standpoint. We only have to look at 4e shunting Gnomes out of the PHB, or the current hub-bub about Half-Elves and Half-Orcs to see that. *I know we're changing this to species, and I don't have any real problem with that, but I've been calling them races for a long time, so it's hard to stop, lol. [/QUOTE]

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