We're arguing about precisely this claim. I don't agree that they "feel more organic to D&D tradition". Tieflings have been around since 1994. That's 27 years. That's older than most D&D players based on the latest figures. That's probably longer than D&D had existed when you started playing. It certainly if for me - D&D had only existed for 15 years year when I started play in 1989. So Tieflings have been a PC race for the majority of D&D's existence. They're also extremely popular. They're vastly more important to D&D's future than halflings, gnomes, half-orcs or possibly even dwarves. The running joke online among younger players is that literally everyone plays a Tielfing Bard, because they're so common (so quite a turnaround for Bards, too).
So you disagree with my feeling. Cool. Feelings are subjective, so a statement like "they feel more organic" is a subjective expression. Are you saying that my subjective feeling is wrong?
Anyhow, I think this runs to the heart of this discussion/disagreement: you are engaging in a logical debate, while I'm positing subjective meta-narratives, so we're running at cross purposes.
But in terms of how our views (and feelings) differ on this, a lot of it might have to do with imprinting and exposure. Meaning, it isn't only about what has existed within D&D, but how we--as individuals--weave together a personal "fantasy mythos" (or in this case, D&D mythos).
I started playing in the early 80s and have read fantasy since, although slowed down by the mid-90s and find that when I feel like reading sf or fantasy, I tend to go for older stuff (mostly before 1990ish). I never got into video games, so wasn't influenced by Warcraft et al. I also have played D&D on and off through the years, and my campaigns tend to have a more "old school" vibe: a blend of Hyborian sword and sorcery and Middle-earthian epic mythos, with a bit of a bunch of other things sprinkled in.
Anyhow, for me I have never gotten into tieflings, dragonborn, and similar races. They have always felt like "add-ons" to the core D&D universe. Strangely enough, probably my all-time favorite RPG and setting is Talislanta, which is about as "non-traditional" as it gets, although it doesn't "feel like D&D."
If we want to look at broader trends and the tradition of D&D outside of our personal experience, we can still see how it has unfolded in different waves and phases. The first wave did not include tieflings or dragonborn, while later waves did. It doesn't make anything more or less part of the D&D tradition, but it may influence how different people view them, depending upon when and what they imprinted to.
As for your statement the importance of tieflings to D&D's future, I cannot say; you could be right, although it also depends upon what you mean by "future." Near future (say, next 5-10 years), sure, absolutely. But today's tieflings might be tomorrow's zorgothians (or whatever). Things change.
Humans and elves seem to have the most staying power, and remain popular no matter what era or edition. It is hard imagining that ever changing. Dwarves? They are, like Andy Murray was to tennis for some years, either the "worst of the best, or best of the rest." So yeah, I'd agree that halflings and gnomes, etc, are a big step down, and I also understand that tieflings and dragonborn are more popular--never said otherwise. But this doesn't negate my own feelings about what is and is not organic to (my own) D&D mythos.
(Other ways to think about - I'd only been playing D&D for 5 years when Tieflings came out, and I was 16 - I'm 43 now.)
(Also I feel a bit vindicated as someone who always played Tieflings and Bards lol, I was clearly merely ahead of my time!)
The concept they come from has been around since the 1980s or 1970s. Genasi are about as old as Tieflings (can't remember if they're core Planescape so 1994 or a later PS book). Shardminds aren't remotely comparable, you're damaging your own point badly by comparing the two. Shardminds only appeared part-way through 3E, and only made a small re-appearance in 4E, and not since. They're also a bizarre concept that doesn't appear in fantasy literature, and relatively rarely appears in sci-fi media.
Again, my "point" is about subjective experience, and what D&D is within the bubble of my own mind. How can I damage that? I have never said that I think halflings are more important to D&D now than tieflings, just that they
feel more organic. Perhaps I should have specified "to me," although I would have thought that was implied with the word "feel."
Anyhow, I think the sea change with races happened in the first half decade of 2E, the early 90s, perhaps especially with the relatively high concept Dark Sun, Planescape and Spelljammer settings, which opened up the flood-gates for "non-traditional" D&D.
Okay, but he specifically and explicitly claimed he didn't, repeatedly (mostly in his letters), so you're contradicting him and saying he doesn't understand his own work, which is, er, bold.
Not consciously. He was explicitly opposed to using any elements of Celtic myth. His reasoning was basically "that naughty word is too crazy and nuts yo" (obviously I am brutally paraphrasing here lol).
I tend to have a somewhat mystical and quasi-Jungian outlook on the nature of imagination and consciousness, so my take is that he was tapping into the same archetypes as certain Celtic forms, whether he saw it that way or not. I'm not saying that he doesn't understand his work (and I've read his Letters two or three times), just that his elves and the Sidhe are based on the same mythic archetype, just as Tuatha de Danaan, Atlanteans, and Numenoreans/Dunedain are all basically expressions of the same thing or, at least, homologous to their respective mythic traditions.
Meaning, the creative process has both a conscious analytic component--take a bit from here and there, and mix it together--but it is also sub-conscious and intuitive, which is why world mythology has so many parallels and similarities, and why Tolkien's elves have elements of the Sidhe and/or Tuatha, even if he did not consciously incorporate them into his work.
I just looked it up and apparently not? Not very memorable either way lol.
Agreed! I don't think I'll ever revisit Shannara.