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

[jmartkdr2]

There's other human shaped dragony things in D&D and the dragonborn, or at least the 3.5e version that I'm most familiar with, are by far the lamest. Draconians are better. So are kobolds.

Draconians and especially kolbolds fill different fantasy niches - kolbolds would be a bad fit for a genneral "dragon-person" race; they're a small race first and craft second. Closer to gnomes but ugly-cute instead of regular-cute.

Draconians are closer; they have some evil origin baggage that dragonborn don't (and that niche is already covered by orcs and tieflings, let alone a whole host of non-core monstrous races).

Dragonborn, however, are a pretty pure version of the Proud Warrior Race guy; the rest of the dragonborn entry adds some dragon-y cosmetic aspects. It's actually a niche that's been mostly unfilled (the closest prior core race was dwarves, but they're filling the surprisingly distint "dwarf" niche)

Now, if you want to argue that dragonborn should have been written in a way that includes draconians, I don't disagree. But just swapping in the Krynn version of draconians is not an improvement, it's a limitation and missing the initial design goal (newbie-friendly playable dragon people, since most dm's would ban any race with wings, and a special death move doesn't jive with the idea that you'll keep your character for the whole campaign.)

Actually 3.5 had gnomes as a core race too, not just the tolkien standards.

I don't get the visceral dislike for tieflings, but the dislike for dragonborn as a core race definintely makes sense to me. Dragonborn were not a major or well established part of D&D when 4e dropped. They were created at the very end of 3.5's run as part of one of the weaker entries in one of the weaker splatbook series. There are so many other races that would have made more sense as an addition to core - such as goblins, kobolds, githzerai, genasi, bariurs, or aasimir

This part I also agree with: the way they were introduced was not great, much like a lot of 4e's new stuff. I even don't like them in FR just because they really should be from somewhere, even if the new dragonborn country itself came from another dimention and just sort of plopped down right on the side of Faerun.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's other human shaped dragony things in D&D and the dragonborn, or at least the 3.5e version that I'm most familiar with, are by far the lamest. Draconians are better. So are kobolds.


Actually 3.5 had gnomes as a core race too, not just the tolkien standards.

I don't get the visceral dislike for tieflings, but the dislike for dragonborn as a core race definintely makes sense to me. Dragonborn were not a major or well established part of D&D when 4e dropped. They were created at the very end of 3.5's run as part of one of the weaker entries in one of the weaker splatbook series. There are so many other races that would have made more sense as an addition to core - such as goblins, kobolds, githzerai, genasi, bariurs, or aasimir

I agree that I like draconian and kobolds a lot more, but I won't stop a player from making a dragonborn PC unless the setting really doesn't allow for it. They're ok. In my homebrew I gave them a story similar to (show your age if you remember this one) the gargoyle race from the Ultima PC game series.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My favorite non-traditional species to include is Warforged. There are a lot of different ways to do one, and there are good story paradigms to draw from in terms of personality and personal growth (Asimov, Data from TNG, Bolos, etc.).

I really like created heritages, and I like the story of the warforged, though it's a bit too specific to Eberron for my tastes. I could get over that, but frankly I don't care for their aesthetic, and I've never thought they were a good fit mechanically for a generic "robot" species. There are several others from various other 5e producers I use instead, most notably the Constructed heritage in Level Up.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Some people who dislike them seem to wish people had to buy separate material to get them because they are selfish traditionalists who want a layer between them and anything they do not like (usually it is new). So even if the content is very popular it must be hidden away for them personally. It is a pattern around here really.

I don't see why. Just because they're in a core book doesn't mean you have to play them or include them in your setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Very distinct indeed though they make me think of animated suits of armor like something out of fullmetal alchemist.

There's an awesome Level Up heritage called the Talos (available as a 3pp supplement on Drivethru) that covers the same aesthetic and narrative without tying them to Eberron and WotC.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yes, absolutely this! Such curated palettes are great for setting the tone of the campaign, and it would be awesome if the official rules would advice how to do this and give such examples.

I however find it wild that this is coming from you, given that every time anyone else has expresses preference for such curated palettes you have fiercely opposed them!

Because I see a vast difference between the following two things.

"Alright guys. I'm running a campaign inspired by Archaic Greece mixed with the Trojan War, the Greek city-states vs Persia but with lots of myth stuff. Lots of races you can't play. No elves. And no, Charlie, you can't play dragonborn in my game. Why not? Because I said so, that's why. I don't like them, so you don't get to play them. If you don't like that, you don't need to play in this campaign."

"Alright guys. My starting campaign idea was Archaic Greece mixed with the Trojan War, the Greek city-states vs Persia but with lots of myth stuff. Gotta have options like satyrs and minotaurs, obviously. I'll be using a homebrew race for dryads, I don't think elves fit, but you'll get a lot of elf-y flavor out of that. I had a private chat with Charlie. He brought up some myths I hadn't heard of before, so dragonborn will be rare, but playable; I'd appreciate it if no more than one other player besides Charlie picked them, as their place in the world is...complicated."

The former is the always-cited "pulling rank", laying down the law, hard-as-nails, no-discussion, no-receptivity presentation always given in this sort of thing. The latter shows a GM who does, in fact, have a clear vision, but who expects to (a) need to persuade the players that that vision is worthwhile, even if they are the GM's friends, and (b) tweak and adjust and meet folks halfway, rather than tossing out an ultimatum that must either be entirely obeyed withotu question or entirely rejected (and thus the player rejects any form of participation at all).

Further, these examples already earn beaucoup sympathy from me, because they objectively cannot be just carbon-copying the now-trite tropes that have reigned supreme for fifty bloody years over this hobby. By being an intentional step away, they are necessarily, from the ground up, built out of examining things and questioning what fits and what doesn't. I inherently expect someone electing to do this to have actual, thought-out reasons for what they're doing, as opposed to tradition exclusively because it's traditional, screw you for having tastes that weren't written about by an author 70 years ago.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't see why. Just because they're in a core book doesn't mean you have to play them or include them in your setting.

I genuinely do not know why this is the case either, but unfortunately it was rampant during the "D&D Next" playtest. I had several people say to my (internet) face that if dragonborn were printed in the 5e PHB, they'd be sitting 5e out in protest.

It really, truly is the case that some people see the inclusion of stuff that isn't for them as (somehow) a slight against their interests.

 

[CreamCloud0]

In practice they're the fourth most popular race, behind humans, elves, and tieflings. (If half-elves are counted as a separate race they come in third).

So more popular than dwarves or halflings at least.

in hindsight i should've been more specific about meaning when they were first originally added, (although seemingly the sentiment still lingers among some), however as it has been mentioned how crudely the method of their addition was implemented of them being dimensionally airdropped into the existing setting i can at least understand the part of the distaste resulting from that.

Draconians and especially kolbolds fill different fantasy niches - kolbolds would be a bad fit for a genneral "dragon-person" race; they're a small race first and craft second. Closer to gnomes but ugly-cute instead of regular-cute.

Draconians are closer; they have some evil origin baggage that dragonborn don't (and that niche is already covered by orcs and tieflings, let alone a whole host of non-core monstrous races).

Dragonborn, however, are a pretty pure version of the Proud Warrior Race guy; the rest of the dragonborn entry adds some dragon-y cosmetic aspects. It's actually a niche that's been mostly unfilled (the closest prior core race was dwarves, but they're filling the surprisingly distint "dwarf" niche)

Now, if you want to argue that dragonborn should have been written in a way that includes draconians, I don't disagree. But just swapping in the Krynn version of draconians is not an improvement, it's a limitation and missing the initial design goal (newbie-friendly playable dragon people, since most dm's would ban any race with wings, and a special death move doesn't jive with the idea that you'll keep your character for the whole campaign.)

i pretty much agree with what you say here, although i don't really know much about draconians besides what a five-second google search tells me what you're saying makes sense to that, and yeah, to me kobolds fit more as a complementary role to the idea of a draconic player species in a setting alongside a species that provides a more traditional representation, they're not the first addition but once you have the first one they're a good second pick, like you say they're the gnomes of draconic beings

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This part I also agree with: the way they were introduced was not great, much like a lot of 4e's new stuff. I even don't like them in FR just because they really should be from somewhere, even if the new dragonborn country itself came from another dimention and just sort of plopped down right on the side of Faerun.

Isn't...that exactly what happened...?

The Abeiran nation of Tymanchebar got translocated from Abeir to Toril, plopping down on top of the (at the time imploding) Kingdom of Unther. By the time the dust finally settled, Unther was more or less dead, but the dragonborn who lived there respected the remnants, and thus elected to call their new home "Tymanther" (Tymanchebar + Unther) in homage to the former nation they had displaced.

They've since occasionally spread out from there, and with FR now being like two or three centuries past that particular apocalyptic event cycle, they're now found in plenty of places, but rarely in large numbers outside of Tymanther.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

in hindsight i should've been more specific about meaning when they were first originally added, (although seemingly the sentiment still lingers among some), however as it has been mentioned how crudely the method of their addition was implemented of them being dimensionally airdropped into the existing setting i can at least understand the part of the distaste resulting from that.

i pretty much agree with what you say here, although i don't really know much about draconians besides what a five-second google search tells me what you're saying makes sense to that, and yeah, to me kobolds fit more as a complementary role to the idea of a draconic player species in a setting alongside a species that provides a more traditional representation, they're not the first addition but once you have the first one they're a good second pick, like you say they're the gnomes of draconic beings

Draconians, which are found on Krynn and exist because of the specific physical effects of the inherently alignment-based nature of that world, are produced by corrupting dragon eggs. A corruption ritual is used on the eggs, which subverts the nature of the dragon from which the draconians are made. Originally, they were created from stolen clutches of metallic dragon eggs, so the "sivak" (silver), "aurak" (gold), etc. draconians are all inherently evil-aligned unless they work to be different (which they were rarely given reason to do). They don't really have "childhoods" as we would understand it, and are specifically trained to be the most vicious, cruel, bloodthirsty soldiers they can be, though time and independence can drift them away.

A later batch of draconians were created from the clutches of chromatic dragons slain during the conflict, because their creator mistakenly believed that the ritual always produced evil beings. It doesn't. It "corrupts" the resulting draconians to be the antithesis of their original draconic nature. Hence, these "noble draconians" were all inherently good aligned, but colored like chromatic dragons, as opposed to the original (one might say "metallic") draconians, who are inherently evil aligned but colored like metallic dragons. Most of the original clutch was slain, but a few survivors are said to exist; naturally, no good-aligned dragon would condone such corruption, even if what it produced was good-aligned draconians.

As a result, draconians aren't really a "people". They are an entirely manufactured species, albeit magically so. They don't have a culture or any real origin, they are tools of war created for war and abused by their creators until (in theory) all they care about is war and violence and obedience to their masters. They do still have a certain thin kind of draconic arrogance and avarice, but it takes nearly the entire run of the series for there to even be a small population of draconians who are acting independently and even considering trying to exist on their own or find a way to perpetuate their species without the interference of Takhisis or her minions.