If they weren't in the phb...

[Lizard]

First thing I'm doing is banning halflings.

There are no halflings in 4e. Just height-challenged stereotype gypsies.

 

[malraux]

I really like the dragonborn concept personally. A race that taps into its "lizard brain" is a great concept for a warrior society.

 

[Darrin Drader]

First thing I'm doing is banning halflings.

I've done that. For the longest time halflings were not a race in my homebrew world. Then when 3E came out, I wrote the thing out and decided to include them.

I'm fine with the new core races, I just wish they didn't come at the expense of the half-orc and gnome.

 

[hong]

There are no halflings in 4e. Just height-challenged stereotype gypsies.

Second thing I'm doing is banning height-challenged stereotype gypsies.

 

[Kordeth]

I really like the dragonborn concept personally. A race that taps into its "lizard brain" is a great concept for a warrior society.

My problem with the dragonborn is that they're too far off from the norm of PC races. All the other PC races are "X-adjective humans:" You've got your tall, pretty humans, your short, stocky humans, your extra-short sneaky humans, and so on. Tacking "dragon-man" onto that is just too jarring, and makes me think of the old "one of these things is not like the others" song.

None of that is to say that a vcampaign with a variety of less-traditional races can't be fun or cool or consistent, but given the rest of the races presented, Dragonborn feel too far off the baseline to "fit" into the grouping.

Also, I think "dragon-men" are kind of dumb, but that's a purely subjective gut opinion and not at all based on game design theory. I do agree that a race based on the lizard-brain is a neat idea, and provided they don't have too many dragonish abilities like breath weapons and claw/claw/bite attacks, I might salvage the crunch and graft it onto new fluff.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I voted "Yes" to all three, with the caveat that I often come up with settings which have a fixed list of playable races in service of a particular premise, and that these races wouldn't make the cut unless they served the premise - but, since the same rule applies to "standard" races like the dwarf and elf, it's not really a big deal.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I voted "Yes" to all three, with the caveat that I often come up with settings which have a fixed list of playable races in service of a particular premise, and that these races wouldn't make the cut unless they served the premise - but, since the same rule applies to "standard" races like the dwarf and elf, it's not really a big deal.

Yeah same thing applies to my settings. Generally though the races I least have in my settings are Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings (I swear I am not a Heightist I just dislike the races in my kind of setting!!!)

 

[malraux]

My problem with the dragonborn is that they're too far off from the norm of PC races. All the other PC races are "X-adjective humans:" You've got your tall, pretty humans, your short, stocky humans, your extra-short sneaky humans, and so on. Tacking "dragon-man" onto that is just too jarring, and makes me think of the old "one of these things is not like the others" song.

To me, that's a flaw with the traditional races. The dwarves and the fey races shouldn't be all that close to humans, except for a failure of imagination. I'm hoping the meta-setting will play up the alien-ness of all the races.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The 4e races are a thing I'm pretty okay with. I'm not a big fan of the 'more specific tiefling,' but that's very minor and everything else meshes just peachy for me. I'd still like to keep the gnome around. And ditch the half-elf fer good. But, really, as another poster said, liberal DM, here: unless theres a mechanical reason to say no, I'll say yes.

 

[Kordeth]

To me, that's a flaw with the traditional races. The dwarves and the fey races shouldn't be all that close to humans, except for a failure of imagination. I'm hoping the meta-setting will play up the alien-ness of all the races.

Culturally and psychologically, no, of course not (although as any good sci-fi/fantasy author will tell you, we put aliens in our stories to reflect elements of ourselves, so making them completely inhuman defeats the purpose). I'm speaking purely in the physical sense. Dragonborn stand out in a lineup way too much for my design aesthetics. It's like if you were playing a real-world historical game and the available races were Frankish, Italian, Briton, and Intelligent Talking Dog.