Heroes of Unlikely Places (Hopefully?)

[Aegeri]

Of all monster races, I think the most overdue are goblins/hobgoblins, if only for the fact that they play such a large role in Eberron.

You know, I've been wondering this myself and we talk about "Forgotten" classes - but it seems to me that Eberron is the forgotten campaign setting. Dark Sun and even FR are seeing regular support (well FR is getting an entire new book) in Dungeon/Dragon (at times). I can't recall when something for Eberron was published since Q'Barra last year and what (if anything) is coming for the setting. Coincidentally, some of the most poorly supported elements in 4E: Changeling and Artificer are both from Eberron originally.

I cannot help but notice that.

 

[Kaodi]

Of all monster races, I think the most overdue are goblins/hobgoblins, if only for the fact that they play such a large role in Eberron.

Orcs are also a fairly credible choice for a PC in Eberron due to the druid sects and the Ghash'kala.

 

[Incenjucar]

I think the problem really boils down to expected sales- if there are a ton of people that straight off say "No thanks" to something like this, there's not much chance we'll see it.

Which is fine with me; I'm one of those "No thanks" people.

I think it goes beyond simple sales - otherwise they could just pop an article into Dragon from time to time, or at the very least they could have given the gnoll and bladeling alt stats. There is evidence that this is at least partly an aesthetic choice. Larger-scale support could certainly be a sign that Savage Species sold poorly, but the smaller support and various comments and articles suggest that there is an active desire to keep those elements limited in the game. I find this deeply unfortunate - like banning purple-dyed hairfrom an office building because it clashes with the curtains.

 

[ceiling90]

You know, I've been wondering this myself and we talk about "Forgotten" classes - but it seems to me that Eberron is the forgotten campaign setting. Dark Sun and even FR are seeing regular support (well FR is getting an entire new book) in Dungeon/Dragon (at times). I can't recall when something for Eberron was published since Q'Barra last year and what (if anything) is coming for the setting. Coincidentally, some of the most poorly supported elements in 4E: Changeling and Artificer are both from Eberron originally.

I cannot help but notice that.

Who was the main writer for Eberron? I know it's the newest setting actually made into DnD, as other settings are at least a decade old. I just feel that this whole retro thing is kinda stopping any "new" and recent settings form being developed.

Something of a reaction to how many of the fans either didn't like the sweeping changes for older settings, or the fact that the edition is pretty much maybe 3 years old?

While much of the fluff and current meta-plot of Eberron is relatively fresh and unchanged from 3.5, it is kinda distressing at how little support it's gotten. Then again, Dark Sun hasn't had much either; but neither did it have as many actual "new" options.

 

[WalterKovacs]

On monster races: While it may be difficult in some cases (especially in a scenario like usng an existing campaign setting or adventure), it would probably be wiser to not finalize the world/campaign until you get an idea of what kinds of characters the PCs want to play. If they all want to play "monster" races ... the campaign could go that direction. At this point, it would be possible to build a "Horde" party, you don't have a troll, but you have orcs, goblins, minotaur, eladrin and revenant, etc... you can even fluff in some other options (half-orcs, elves, half-elves, gnolls, etc). Whether a race is monstrous or not depends on the setting.

Heck, if the king is an elf, in an elven kingdom, humans may be monstrous while Minotaurs are welcome allies if there happens to be a human/elven war going on.

As for new "Heroes of X" books:

Heroes of Chaos

Elemental power source, primordial, and demonic ties, etc

Astral Heroes

Divine support, both angelic and diabolic ties, etc

Abberant Heroes

Psionic support, ties to the far realm and abberants, etc

Anti-Heroes of the Forgotten Lands

More of a connection to the core world setting, with a leaning towards monster races.

 

[Klaus]

Orcs are also a fairly credible choice for a PC in Eberron due to the druid sects and the Ghash'kala.

True, I forgot those Gatekeeper druids.

 

[Incenjucar]

You know, I've been musing about the idea of a D&D setting built specifically around the relatively neglected parts of the system, like aquatic environments, mounted combat, mass combat, and a bunch of the other stuff in that Design Space thread we had going for awhile - could be a perfect place for monster-PC-centric design. Maybe make it a world where the primordials are dominant over the gods, instead of visa versa. Could even be Abeir if it absolutely had to use an existing franchise. Call it Flipside or something.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I'll chime in as a voice of dissent. I'm just not a big fan of "monstrous" races for player characters. Yes, I know we have Tieflings and Gnomes and Minotaurs and such - and frankly, I'm not big fans of those races, either (Gnome bothers me less than Tiefling and Minotaur).

I'll grant that it depends on the player, of course; my long-running Friday night online game in the War of the Burning Sky campaign had three of the five original PCs as a Tiefling, Gnome and Minotaur. I think they mainly picked their races for their stat bonuses, though, and they've played their characters in fun ways.

Still, as a DM I have a hard time figuring out how to have it make sense that a party of monsters would fit in just fine doing work for the king, etc. One "weird" race in a party can fit in just fine; five of them would strain the bounds of my storytelling ability. We muddle through, though.

Well, this is simply a problem of too many human-centric worlds and games.If humans are notthe vast majority and osme kind of racial equalism exists, it should not be a problem.

This is something I struggle with, though I know better. Shows like Star Wars and Star Trek are very guilty of this too. Humans come from one planet, but the majority of the action is done by humans. Ohhhh, ok.

Really if the owrld is more eglatarian, this is less of a problem.

 

[Incenjucar]

Well, this is simply a problem of too many human-centric worlds and games.If humans are notthe vast majority and osme kind of racial equalism exists, it should not be a problem.

This is something I struggle with, though I know better. Shows like Star Wars and Star Trek are very guilty of this too. Humans come from one planet, but the majority of the action is done by humans. Ohhhh, ok.

Really if the owrld is more eglatarian, this is less of a problem.

A very good point. The human-centric design creates a feedback loop that forces later design to remain human-centric because everything else is human-centric. While it's true that an unignorable portion of the population will be human-centric in what they enjoy in their fiction, there is still a sizable population that greatly enjoys experiencing things from the perspective of something markedly different, even if it's just a symbol of something very human. Embracing the Other has worked for a LOT of other games, and a large part of why D&D has been bad at doing so in the past is that, in prior editions, the rules for many monstrous PCs were horrible. 4E, however, has already demonstrated better ways to deal with monstrous PCs - classes, feats, themes, and diluted races with PPs and EDs.

 

[OnlineDM]

Well, this is simply a problem of too many human-centric worlds and games.If humans are notthe vast majority and osme kind of racial equalism exists, it should not be a problem.

This is something I struggle with, though I know better. Shows like Star Wars and Star Trek are very guilty of this too. Humans come from one planet, but the majority of the action is done by humans. Ohhhh, ok.

Really if the owrld is more eglatarian, this is less of a problem.

Excellent point. If I were running a campaign in a setting where every race is common, even really "strange" races, then I would have no problem with players picking any race they want. But the fact is that I tend to run campaigns in settings where the dominant races are human, dwarf, elf and halfling (Tolkieneque). Half-elves fit right in, too, of course. Beyond that, well, other races are outliers. If they weren't, this wouldn't be a problem.

Obviously, I'm the DM and I can change the setting as I see fit (especially in a home brew setting). I could say that my particular setting has all races living side by side... but that, for whatever reason, doesn't feel like the game I really want to run. I guess I'm racist.