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

[bedir than]

I've noticed that people who don't play in FR (such as myself) get annoyed when others assume that FR lore is official universal DnD lore and there applicable to all games.

Amen.

The world in which my games are set shouldn't be dictated by Ed, Gary, Jeff, etc. They aren't at my table. They weren't telling our stories.

And that's why my goliaths are quite different than trad lore. They fit my world.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

I guess a lot of people have touched in this: But the major barrier I see from playing goliaths seems to be lore integration. That is, it feels like there's rarely much sign of them in the games my friends and I run. Maybe occasionally rumors of some up in the mountains...but most of the time it doesn't feel there's actually much about their influence on the world. I guess most of the people I game with prefer stronger social ties to whatever fantasy-medieval society or something? I don't know - I don't see anyone complaining about them being bad. But nobody seems interested in playing one.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I guess a lot of people have touched in this: But the major barrier I see from playing goliaths seems to be lore integration. That is, it feels like there's rarely much sign of them in the games my friends and I run. Maybe occasionally rumors of some up in the mountains...but most of the time it doesn't feel there's actually much about their influence on the world. I guess most of the people I game with prefer stronger social ties to whatever fantasy-medieval society or something? I don't know - I don't see anyone complaining about them being bad. But nobody seems interested in playing one.

That can be a chicken-egg situation, IME. As soon as a player wants to be a goliath, then the lore will be written and integrated, but until then there's a lot less motivation to do that.

Most dms make a point of including humans, elves, dwarves, whatever's popular at the table, and whatever races the dm personally likes. The rest are usually nebulously "there" with few specifics- which is fair, really. But it means new ideas often need a bit of a push to get included.

 

[Staffan]

I guess a lot of people have touched in this: But the major barrier I see from playing goliaths seems to be lore integration. That is, it feels like there's rarely much sign of them in the games my friends and I run. Maybe occasionally rumors of some up in the mountains...but most of the time it doesn't feel there's actually much about their influence on the world. I guess most of the people I game with prefer stronger social ties to whatever fantasy-medieval society or something? I don't know - I don't see anyone complaining about them being bad. But nobody seems interested in playing one.

That's what I was getting at in an earlier post. If you look at Eberron for example, you have natural homelands for dwarves (Mror Holds), halflings (Talenta Plains), elves (Aerenal, Valenar), gnomes (Zilargo) goblinoids (Darguun), and (half-)orcs (Shadow Marshes, Demon Wastes), and they even managed to retcon in dragonborn in Q'Barra. In addition, most of these species are integrated in Five Nations society via the Dragonmarked Houses and general migration. So if you want to play a dwarf, there are plenty of convenient lore options available: you could be traveling from the Mror Holds, you could be part of a family that moved to Sharn (or wherever the campaign is based) a long time ago and sees themselves as primarily Brelish rather than dwarven, or you could be associated with House Kundarak.

But goliaths don't have that. There are definitely places where you could squeeze them in. Xen'drik would be the obvious place, seeing as that's the "giants" place. There's probably room for them in Droaam as well, particularly in the Greywall Mountains. Maybe you could rewrite Zilargo to have a tension and/or symbiosis between the urban gnomes and rural goliaths. But they're not connected to the world. They'll always kind of feel pasted on.

Tal'Dorei is probably the only setting where goliaths are reasonably well integrated with the setting, and that's because Matt Mercer basically built the setting around Vox Machina and Travis Willingham wanted to play a Big Guy.

 

[Mistwell]

"Towering over most folk, goliaths are distant descendants of giants." is directly from the 2024 handbook. To me distant descendant = not a direct descendant = not a half race. You can nitpick the word evolved but at that point we're arguing semantics, the point is that they're not a half race like half elves and half orcs.

You're right that the book doesn't get into their culture at all, WOTC doesn't talk about culture with the rest of the races either because they did not want to tie any of the races to a pre existing setting on the PHB. I find it frustrating, and I chose to base my answer with forgotten realms lore in mind, because otherwise there's not really anything to respond with. Perhaps that's the wrong approach, though.

How distant can they be when they're split into the exact same categories as giants, with lesser powers based directly on each giant type and not varying from it? They're literally called the giant names, like Cloud.

 

[cbwjm]

I guess a lot of people have touched in this: But the major barrier I see from playing goliaths seems to be lore integration. That is, it feels like there's rarely much sign of them in the games my friends and I run. Maybe occasionally rumors of some up in the mountains...but most of the time it doesn't feel there's actually much about their influence on the world. I guess most of the people I game with prefer stronger social ties to whatever fantasy-medieval society or something? I don't know - I don't see anyone complaining about them being bad. But nobody seems interested in playing one.

That can be pretty important. I often include races based on the following:

1. The initial race selection by players.
2. Created setting lore.

Once the setting lore is "done", I often won't include other races unless I have a large open unexplored area but even then, they'll often be made up of cultural variations of the already selected races. So if someone was allowed to play something that wasn't already in the setting, there would be little, if any, lore integration.

 

[plecostomus]

Niche use, but goliath mechanics work well if you want to make irda PCs in Dragonlance. You can rename the first 5 ability choices after each chromatic dragon color since irda were created by Takhisis, and rename Stone's Endurance to Ogre Endurance. Getting big is also a suitable ability for irda, who are described as being very tall and having some skill in shapeshifting as well.