My first proper 4E game - Our reaction.

[SSquirrel]

"Dragons" is half the name of D&D. Dragons have been known to be shapechangers for years and I knew people who would try and convince the DM to let them roll up a dragon capable of shapechanging as a PC back in the 1E days. Dark Sun allowed high level Defilers to turn into Dragons. 3rd Ed brought us the Half Dragon template, the Dragon Disciple (and other later PrCs), Monte brought us the Mojh and Dracha.
I don't see this as a new and bizarre interest. Yes, it might not fit into a Euro-centric medieval fantasy game, but then again, neither does a lot of stuff you find in D&D.

As far as alignment goes, LG, LE, CG and CE are all equal extremes as far as points on the chart goes. However, CG and LE have always seemed less to the edge of the dial than LG and CE for me. Lawful Good was super uptight AND goody 2 shoes, while Chaotic Evil was just pure, unadulterated villainy. Chaos and goodness and the law abiding bad guy...not so much. LN and CN both had serious problems of their own.

Personally I would have been happiest w/alignment finally being purged, but the way it is in 4E is more a single line than anything else.

LG G U E CE

Most folks will be unaligned b/c nothing strikes them personally enough to be truly behind any cause. Maybe someone who has grown up w/a strong sense of duty and desire to see people protected will end up as Good and become a guardsman of their city. The people who are CE and LG are the extreme champions of Evil and Good respectively. They take the other aspect and push it just as far as their core belief. Maybe pushing as much into chaos as you can will result in evil gaining a stronger hold in the world, just like establishing law and order, religion and such may help goodness.

 

[Wormwood]

And I will freely admit the combats are Hella fun both from a DM and a player standpoint IMO.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[rounser]

"Dragons" is half the name of D&D. Dragons have been known to be shapechangers for years and I knew people who would try and convince the DM to let them roll up a dragon capable of shapechanging as a PC back in the 1E days.

But dragonborn aren't dragons. They're men in a dragon suit.

If you got to play an actual, honest-to-goodness DRAGON in 4E, ala Council of Wyrms, then that would have been way cool. But you don't, and it isn't. Instead it's a compromise which adds odd and possibly unwelcome baggage to the implied setting in a thousand worlds.

As far as alignment goes, LG, LE, CG and CE are all equal extremes as far as points on the chart goes. However, CG and LE have always seemed less to the edge of the dial than LG and CE for me. Lawful Good was super uptight AND goody 2 shoes, while Chaotic Evil was just pure, unadulterated villainy. Chaos and goodness and the law abiding bad guy...not so much. LN and CN both had serious problems of their own.

But why keep just that bit of the Moorcockian alignment axis? It's even more random than it being there in complete form. Why doesn't D&D 4E have the alignment rules that the game has been begging for for decades now, the oh-so-simple Good-Neutral/Unaligned-Evil one? That's what we've been playing ever since it was Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic. Chaotic was just code for "Evil", unless you were talking about mandrakes, maybe. Paladins can go jump in the lake. Just give them their precious chivalric code on top of "Good" if you must.

Instead, we've got another compromise, and one that sticks out like a sore thumb. Somehow, they've made alignment even more of a white elephant than it was! I'm glad it's there, because the game needs it (no reading through monster descriptions to work out if this is a bad guy or not) but the LG and CE is just so...random.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Elves are men with ear covers. Dwarves are short men with beards that drink a lot. I haven't heard anyone complain about that yet.

 

[rounser]

Elves are men with ear covers. Dwarves are short men with beards that drink a lot. I haven't heard anyone complain about that yet.

The difference is that they've got hundreds of years of mythological resonance covering their backsides. Dragonborn don't even have a proper name, nor resonance enough to belong to a thousand worlds.

 

[Jhaelen]

The difference is that they've got hundreds of years of mythological resonance covering their backsides.

Ah, do they, now?

I'd argue that 4E is the first edition of D&D that actually acknowledges the mythological roots of elves.

 

[Quartz]

Aren't Dragonborn simply the 4e version of Dragonlance's draconians?

 

[rounser]

Aren't Dragonborn simply the 4e version of Dragonlance's draconians?

Not in the least, IMO. Draconians are always villains, never PCs. And they're a lot more interesting IMO than dragonborn - they do things like turn to stone, acid or explode upon death, or dopplegang.

In the DL world they are abominations made out of stolen dragon eggs, and have no place in the natural order of things. Dragonborn feel to me like they're out of someone's quirky homebrew game setting, and don't deserve core rule PC race status. IMO.

 

[AllisterH]

Not in the least, IMO. Draconians are always villains, never PCs. And they're a lot more interesting IMO than dragonborn - they do things like turn to stone, acid or explode upon death, or dopplegang.

In the DL world they are abominations made out of stolen dragon eggs, and have no place in the natural order of things. Dragonborn feel to me like they're out of someone's quirky homebrew game setting, and don't deserve core rule PC race status. IMO.

I think you might have missed the last 10 years of DL rounser.

1. Draconians breed true and are no longer "abominations"
2. Weis herself introduced both good and female draconians all the way back in 1996. (yes, this even predates 3e)
3. Draconians have been a player character race since the release of the Dragonlance campaign setting.

I kinda have to agree with others that either someone at WOTC has a dragonmen-fetish OR there is widespread appeal among fans for "dragon-men" style races.

 

[rounser]

I think you might have missed the last 10 years of DL rounser.

It's a fair cop. I've been vaguely aware that they keep on rebooting the franchise (and judging by what you've said, retconning it). Poor old DL must have jumped the shark multiple times by now, I'd assume...