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

[Mind of tempest]

How do you integrate regular giants into your world? These are a people with complex societies that occupy a huge amount of space, and require a huge amount of food and other resources, and often have inherent magical abilities.

And yet most worlds are dominated by tiny humans and their societies, with giants having little impact.

However you deal with giants, smaller giants must be easier.

given most giants are intergreat badly, I assume most people don't.

Do you think about GL worried about how wookiees fitted into the world and what mattered to them when he wrote Star Wars, or did he base his big guy sidekick on his dog?

There is lore on Goliath society in the FR, Rime of the Frost Maiden is a good source, but it’s created whole cloth, not based on a literary or mythological source. Big Guy is the archetype, everything else is just window dressing.

he was making a space adventure about the hero of a thousand faces.

also a galaxy being very big is much easier to fit things into what with the multiple planets.

 

[Aurel Guthrie]

I have to admit, Goliaths put the lie to the idea WOTC can't or won't do half-races. Goliaths are half-giants. They can dance around that claim however they want, but it says directly they're "distant descendants of giants" that have "physical characteristics that are reminiscent of the giants in their family lines". THAT'S A HALF RACE! The distinction between this concept and an actual half race is sophistry and semantics.

Just re-introduce half-elves, and rename them to Khorvar or something like that. Obviously the concept is acceptable to WOTC with these half-giants, so it must be the "half" name. Fine, rename them and make them "distant descendants of elves" that have "physical characteristics that are reminiscent of the elves in their family lines."

While I'm against WOTC getting rid of half-races, being a distant descendant doesn't make you a half-race. Goliaths evolved from Giants. A half-elf or half-orc has very direct ancestry with elves or orcs: parents, grandparents, and half-elves/orcs are interesting for not truly belonging to either culture and having to find a place where they belong, whereas Goliaths have their own established cultures.

Interestingly enough there's actually a half-giant half-goliath, Feral Gargun from 3.5 Races of Stone

 

[Mind of tempest]

While I'm against WOTC getting rid of half-races, being a distant descendant doesn't make you a half-race. Goliaths evolved from Giants. A half-elf or half-orc has very direct ancestry with elves or orcs: parents, grandparents, and half-elves/orcs are interesting for not truly belonging to either culture and having to find a place where they belong, whereas Goliaths have their own established cultures.

Interestingly enough there's actually a half-giant half-goliath, Feral Gargun from 3.5 Races of Stone

I think they are some sort of relates species just not part of the giant giants, more like trolls and ogres, just not terrible.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

given most giants are intergreat badly, I assume most people don't.

he was making a space adventure about the hero of a thousand faces.

also a galaxy being very big is much easier to fit things into what with the multiple planets.

So what you are saying is it doesn’t matter if your world has no place for giant societies, as monsters you are perfectly happy to handwave where they come from, but if a species is a potential PC it needs to be a cultural stereotype within the human world.

I’m from Liverpool. Does that mean I have to steel the wheels of cars and leave them on bricks, because that’s my culture?

 

[Mistwell]

While I'm against WOTC getting rid of half-races, being a distant descendant doesn't make you a half-race. Goliaths evolved from Giants.

For specifically 5.24e, it doesn't really say that.

A half-elf or half-orc has very direct ancestry with elves or orcs: parents, grandparents, and half-elves/orcs are interesting for not truly belonging to either culture and having to find a place where they belong, whereas Goliaths have their own established cultures.

As noted above by another user, WOTC didn't really give much to go on to establish their own culture for 5.24e. What's a Fire Goliath culture like? No idea really.

Now you can say in prior editions they had more culture, but in prior editions they had half-races. We're talking in 5.24e. And for this edition...it sure looks like a half race to me, and doesn't represent them as particularly distinct from giants other than "that would be overpowered so here's a half-giant race that's toned down enough to be balanced for a PC."

 

[Mind of tempest]

So what you are saying is it doesn’t matter if your world has no place for giant societies, as monsters you are perfectly happy to handwave where they come from, but if a species is a potential PC it needs to be a cultural stereotype within the human world.

I’m from Liverpool. Does that mean I have to steel the wheels of cars and leave them on bricks, because that’s my culture?

You assume my dislike and snark at the present situation is the same as what I wish were the case.

No, however some of us do not do well with a blank sheet with no clear idea how to make use of it, and goliaths do not inspire much at present, I wish for that to change.

 

[cbwjm]

I know nothing about the new goliath stats, but it sounds similar to how I would run them anyway. In my setting they were created by the Titans for the armies, each titan is related to an element so sounds like most of these goliaths would easily fit in.