D&D (2024) How's the adoption of the new Goliath types going?

[Mind of tempest]

Probably playing the wrong game then.

None of the playable species in the PHB have much lore, because the expectation is that it will vary between settings. A dwarf is a blank slate to someone unfamiliar with Tolkien- increasing likely in the current diverse fantasy market. Come to D&D via BG3 and you will know more about githyanki than you do about dwarves.

The point is that dwarfs have a definition in the fantasy zeitgeist, goliaths do not. Some definition is what I want something to work with.
Remember it is always some dms first time, thus it helps to make it so they do not have to fly by the seat of their underwear.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The point is that dwarfs have a definition in the fantasy zeitgeist, goliaths do not. Some definition is what I want something to work with.
Remember it is always some dms first time, thus it helps to make it so they do not have to fly by the seat of their underwear.

What you mean is “I know about dwarves because I’ve read LotR, and I haven’t noticed that the world has moved on since then”.

 

[Mind of tempest]

What you mean is “I know about dwarves because I’ve read LotR, and I haven’t noticed that the world has moved on since then”.

dude I was not allowed near any of my family's copies of that I watch the films and play video games.
they have more or less stayed unchanged for decades, as fantasy has not moved much on dwarves.

 

[bedir than]

The point is that dwarfs have a definition in the fantasy zeitgeist, goliaths do not. Some definition is what I want something to work with.
Remember it is always some dms first time, thus it helps to make it so they do not have to fly by the seat of their underwear.

You are not familiar with the story David and Goliath?
Or Critical Role?
Did you click on the TV Tropes links provided and read about the goliath and similar archetypes there?

The resources are plentiful.

 

[Staffan]

What you mean is “I know about dwarves because I’ve read LotR, and I haven’t noticed that the world has moved on since then”.

LOTR in many ways forms the core of what dwarves are in fantasy. There are plenty of dwarves in other sources who aren't clones of Gimli, but usually they can be summed up as "LOTR dwarf except for X."

There's no similar core for goliaths except the general Big Guy trope, because goliaths were made up by Wizards about 20 years ago and since they were never added to the SRD for others to play with nor properly integrated into any of their own settings there isn't much lore to work from.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

dude I was not allowed near any of my family's copies of that I watch the films and play video games.
they have more or less stayed unchanged for decades, as fantasy has not moved much on dwarves.

Apart from dwarves are now extras sitting at the back of the cantina. Zeitgeist means spirit of the age, and the age isn’t the 1970s any more. Drax the Destroyer is far more zeitgeisty than Gimli these days.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You are not familiar with the story David and Goliath?
Or Critical Role?
Did you click on the TV Tropes links provided and read about the goliath and similar archetypes there?

The resources are plentiful.

I mean, Conan, if you like. REH believed there were different races of human, and made Cimmerians a particularly big, strong and tough species.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The point is that dwarfs have a definition in the fantasy zeitgeist, goliaths do not. Some definition is what I want something to work with.
Remember it is always some dms first time, thus it helps to make it so they do not have to fly by the seat of their underwear.

Nah, D&D is the one that had a problem here because for decades the "fantasy zeitgeist" included a "big guy" race, and usually a "beast person" race and so on, and D&D didn't have either of those in a corebook until 4E with Dragonborn, where it combined them in a very clunky and un-zeitgeist-y way, also jamming "Honorable Warrior Race" (i.e. Klingon) in there, to make them a rather overstuffed deal.

Goliaths being 2024 D&D though makes complete sense because it separates out the "big guy" race from the "beast person" race (D&D still doesn't really have that as a corebook race) and the "Honorable Warrior Race", which in fiction, they usually are separate from.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Githyanki are making an aggressive play for the honourable warrior race slot.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Githyanki are making an aggressive play for the honourable warrior race slot.

One already filled by the dragonborn (and, to a lesser extent, dwarves). Not that overstuffing a niche has ever held WotC back.