D&D General I finally like non-Tolkien species for PCs

I used to see the argument a lot in the OSR sphere (... on Google+, so this was a while ago) about how appropriate it was to include non-Original Rules races in D&D. A lot of people feel, to play the game "correctly" (whatever that means) you need to use the originals only.

What's weird is, some of the earliest fan and official material was really, really odd races for D&D. In an early Alarums & Excursions, there was a dragon character class. In the article "My Life as a Werebear: D&D Monster Character Classes" from White Dwarf #17 (Feb/Mar 1980), Lew Pulsipher wrote up rules for one player to play a whole pack of blink dogs. Playing off-type is as traditional as absolutely anything else in D&D.
I would never have thought that despite being very old school in most of my thinking. Not doubting what your saying just saying that thinking never reached my neck of the woods.
 

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i can't believe 5e still doesn't have a proper playable dryad option, plant people are, well, while not a favourite concept exactly are still very much a staple one, LotR even had the ent's for goodness sake even if those didn't get brought into the spotlight with the rest of the tolkien species.
Yeah, I honestly could've sworn they had done something, at least from MtG or something like that. Even 4e did this! But 5e apparently thinks 11 years isn't enough time to release a single plant-person species.
 

Yes this would be so very good to see.

I'm a big fan of curated Setting Palettes and the ones you've outlined are a good fun set, though you may want to add other nymphs to your 'wood elf dryads'. Interesting call on the Spartoi, it works as good as any other and is thematically linked.

I'm not a fan of dragonborn or tieflings as presented and I think after reading this thread it isnt because theyre monsters (I like monster races, afterall I once played a PC Willowisp psion) my issues is that as presented in the core set tieflings and dragonborn are boring - they suffer the Star Trek issue of being humans with head ridges, funny noses and horns. Giving them real and meaningful cultural distinction that has their species being notable is what I would prefer. 5e has killed that in favour of well ribbon flavour not hearty depth
I found the Ecology of the Dragonborn and (many, many) snippets about Arkhosia pretty solid, but I would understand if that wasn't enough for your taste.
 

Yeah, I honestly could've sworn they had done something, at least from MtG or something like that. Even 4e did this! But 5e apparently thinks 11 years isn't enough time to release a single plant-person species.
WotC doesn't think making a dryad is needed, to be fair. Plenty of other folks have provided such an option for 5e.
 


Dryads typically have to stay near their specific magic tree, right? So, a Dryad adventurer seems kind of hard to do.
Yeah, you have to relax the physical proximity restriction for adventuring purposes, but I think it'll be ok so long as you keep the connection to the tree intact. Maybe they become more physically anchored as they grow older?
 


Dryads typically have to stay near their specific magic tree, right? So, a Dryad adventurer seems kind of hard to do.
It is worth noting that "medusa", "minotaur", and various other Greek mythical creatures were unique. (The Gorgons are kinda complicated, but there was only one "Medusa", it's her personal name.) It's hardly unusual to make something playable by deviating from the strict definition.
 



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