I've reversed my stance on dragonborn and tieflings

[Derren]

A quick review of the monster manuals might actually recommend this course of action. I assume you can count the number of good, non-savage races on fingers and toes. The rest are potentially hostile, or actively hostile and unable to be reasoned with.

But you're right, D&D people act as if they're in a pseudomedieval world rather than a "D&D brought to it's logical conclusion" world, and seem largely oblivious to the sheer number of monsters wandering around the landscape. For their part, the monsters seem to have an unspoken agreement to leave human towns and farms alone until a plot point comes along.

It doesn't stand up to scrutiny, but the alternative to handwaving such stuff is probably far worse.

Only very few monsters in the MM are civilized like the Dragonborn are. Generally, if they carry manufactured weapons/tools then you need to investigate further. And all civilized monsters in the MM which are evil deserve this bad reputation. Dragonborn on the other hande are not.

And as I said before, the first contact between Dragonborn and Humans was several hundered in the past. By now humans know that Dragonborn are no monsters.

 

[Incenjucar]

How do I put this...

Tieflings are Jack Sparrow, Dragonborn are Will Turner.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

!

Tieflings are fine, and, if they weren't also tieflings, gargoyle people would be fine. I'd love to play a wingless Goliath.

Putting them together though is a bit awkward.

Holy crud, dude! You just have An idea moment!

Tiefling, remixed, could be used for the Ultima pc games serie's Gargoyle race!!! Perfect for a D20 adaptation!

(or the Dragonborns?)

 

[The Little Raven]

I'm still waiting to hear you say something discriminating about the 4E game which isn't all pro pro pro, defend defend defend, though.

Why do I have to have some sort of negative opinion, or be willing to share it with you? I have no need to validate my opinion or belief in anyone's eyes, so I don't really see the point of this. Call me a fanboy if you want, because I guess I am one of those, but please refrain from implying that I might be some kind of shill with a vested interest in other people liking this game.

I'm just a long-time gamer that wants his favorite RPG to keep evolving, growing, and kicking ass.

 

[rounser]

Why do I have to have some sort of negative opinion, or be willing to share it with you?

You don't. I'm just asking.

 

[Dormammu]

In Tolkien, Half-Orcs are all villains, as are Petty-Dwarves (from memory, the closest Tolkein gets to Gnomes). This hasn't stopped them being used as heroic races in D&D, and being described as generic/traditional in that role.

As it happens, Half-Orcs are probably the one original race I have never seen someone tout as generic. So I'm not sure that is a good example. Gnomes as generic is a rare argument, but when used I would assume it's drawing more on the real world folklore of gnome than on a Tolkien reference to "petty-dwarves". I know I never heard that reference myself!

 

[kennew142]

In response to Mourn, Rounser said:

I'm still waiting to hear you say something discriminating about the 4E game which isn't all pro pro pro, defend defend defend, though.

There are lots of folks who haven't had anything negative to say about 4e D&D so far. That doesn't make them non-discriminating. No one in my gaming circle has seen any mechanical preview that didn't excite them. Every single thing (with exception of Golden Wyvern Adept and Dragon Tail Cut) that has been announced, leaked or previewed so far has been an improvement in our eyes. That includes the name Eladrin, the flavor text for tieflings, the changes to halflings, the moving of gnomes to the MM, etc...

Just because someone likes what they've seen doesn't mean they aren't thinking about it. We discuss every preview, either in person or on our gaming blog, in detail.

I am a long time homebrewer. Although I am currently running an FR campaign and an Eberron campaign, the previous two were homebrews. I have always had to rip stuff out of the core rules in order to craft a game to suit my purposes. With gnomes gone, there's now one fewer. If you don't like the name eladrin or tiefling, you can always change it. I'm doing it with tiefling, but we like eladrin.

As a few posters have already noted, this version of D&D, flavor text included, looks much closer to traditional fantasy than to what D&D has become - a watered down version of LotR.

 

[pemerton]

As it happens, Half-Orcs are probably the one original race I have never seen someone tout as generic. So I'm not sure that is a good example. Gnomes as generic is a rare argument, but when used I would assume it's drawing more on the real world folklore of gnome than on a Tolkien reference to "petty-dwarves". I know I never heard that reference myself!

Petty-dwarves appear in Turin's tale in The Silmarillion and the Unifinished Tales (and, presumably, in the History of Middle Earth material that corresponds to this).

As for the status of half-orcs and gnomes as generic and/or traditional, I give you post 9 from this thread (it uses the word "classic" rather than "traditional", and "setting-neutral" rather than "generic"):

Agreed! Classic RPGs remain classic because they avoid dating themselves in such an obvious manner.

Why couldn't the PHB have classic races (dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, half-orc, and human) done in as setting-neutral a way as possible?

Later PHBs could have been setting specific. A planar PHB could have assimar, tieflings and other planar races. The Eberron PHB would have changelings, warforged, etc.

The answer is that WotC wants players who want classic options to have to buy as many PHBs as possible.

Anyway, even if we put Half-Orcs and Gnomes to one side, I still don't see what is espcially generic about Dwarves and Elves. North-western European mythology strikes me as fairly specific, not generic. Furthermore, if one looks at the fairy tales, Dwarves and Elves are typically villains (or perhaps antagonistic forces of nature), not heroes - and certainly not protagonists. The use of Dwarves and Elves as sympathetic protagonists really begins, as far as I am aware, with Tolkien, and that is not generic or traditional at all - it is a single author inventing a new genre.

 

[Raduin711]

Why can't people conceive of an anti-hero that isn't full of angst? We have plenty of literary and cinematic examples of such heroes, like Conan (gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirths, but no angsty brooding for this Cimmerian) and the Man With No Name (deep, complex, thoughtful, but nowhere near angst).

mel·an·chol·y /ˈmɛlənˌkɒli/ noun, plural -chol·ies, adjective
–noun 1. a gloomy state of mind, esp. when habitual or prolonged; depression.
2. sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness.
3. Archaic. a. the condition of having too much black bile, considered in ancient and medieval medicine to cause gloominess and depression.
b. black bile.
–adjective 4. affected with, characterized by, or showing melancholy; mournful; depressed: a melancholy mood.
5. causing melancholy or sadness; saddening: a melancholy occasion.
6. soberly thoughtful; pensive.

brood·ing /ˈbrudɪŋ/ [broo-ding]
–adjective 1. preoccupied with depressing, morbid, or painful memories or thoughts: a brooding frame of mind.
2. cast in subdued light so as to convey a somewhat threatening atmosphere: Dusk fell on the brooding hills.

Different words, slightly different meanings, but you can't very well say that Conan was posessed of great meloncholies but was not posessed of angsty broodings.

People keep bringing up "Emo" "Goth" etc. as this sort of cheap characterization that should be avoided at all costs, when we have here one of sword-and-sorcery's most beloved (hero? anti-hero?) who is nearly bipolar in personality. A good character is well rounded in his personality. And good characters are hard to make and play.

A lot of "dark" characters I have played or played with haven't had quite the depth of Conan of Cimmeria, Drizzt Do'Urden or Raistlin Majere, but then, neither have the "not dark" ones. I think the point should be not to discourage "Emo" characters (which everyone seems to have a different definition of what is Emo) but maybe to take a cue from literary characters who have both highs and lows.

Edit: or to just chill out and play the game. ;]

 

[Scarbonac]

I'm puzzled as to why a character needs horns and a tail to be "emo" or why you have to be some sort of a samurai lizard in order to be "badass".

Both are states of mind, not genetic traits.