PHB2 Races = Mos Eisley Cantina

[JiffyPopTart]

1) I'm sure there are lots of people who can play dragonborn as a social creatures but I can't really seem to. I tried, but they just seemed too monstrous to really fit in to really make the "epic romance" style fantasy work. The shifters and the half-orcs work for me because they are human with a little bit of monstrous edge, while the dragonborn are monsters that walk like humans. So I feel the "Mos Eisley" problem that the OP referred to, that they work well as an exotic rarity at a cosmopolitan Astral Sea port, but not as your local constable.

Does everyone in your game have a romantic subplot? Wouldn't it be possible to have some other sort of subplot wrapped around a dragonborn? Heck, even the "Everyone on the planet finds your kind really weird and doesn't like to be around you" can make for an interesting subplot when roleplayed.

I ran a Shadowrun campaign for a brief while back in its 1e days, and a player made an Ork. I really roleplayed the "people don't like or trust orks" aspect of them and it ended up making the character way more interesting than if I had just treated him as the gruff silent dwarf sitting in the corner of the bar.

DS

 

[Garthanos]

I know I'm nitpicking a bit, but when quoting someone it would be nice to make sure you credit the right person. Arthur Clarke, not Asimov.

Damn, memory fails yet again. My apologies go to Mr. Clarke. Knew I should have googled first.... the point still stands even if it happens to also reflect the one on the top of my head. ;-)

 

[Campbell]

With any game there's bound to be some material you don't like — that's why banning stuff was invented. I did it all the time when I ran 3e – with bards, druids, Frenzied Berserkers, gnomes, halflings, etc. I hear some people even banned Wizards. It's not that hard. When a player says 'I want to play X' you just say 'No. I don't like X.' It really is that simple.

 

[broghammerj]

My only issue is the potential arms race that always occurs with DnD. Here are X number of new races which are all "different" but equally "balanced" for gameplay. Eventually you run out of combinations that still work for the game.

This is obviously an entirely different issue but when the rules turn into Mos Eisley some races start becoming stronger than others.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm sure there are lots of people who can play dragonborn as a social creatures but I can't really seem to.

The basic problem I have with wierd PC races is that they are basically unroleplayable.

They are all just humans that look wierd.

The thing with elves and drawves is that even if they are just humans that look wierd, at least I have centuries of mythic tradition backing them up, generally look like humans, the probable real life inspirations behind the myth are walking around, and reams of fantasy exists on the question 'what makes an elf/dwarf' tick that is distinctly not-human.

Heck, even something like 'Star Trek' has its Elves (Vulcans), Orcs (Old Klingons), Dwarves (New Klingons), and Drow (Romulans) tapping into the archetypes. (Throw in Ferengi as goblins, maybe)

And even something like Warforged I can get. (Speaking of embracing the science fiction fully...)

But Dragonborn? No clue.

If all the personalities of a race are well within human norms, at least make them look human. If there is one interesting facet of the creation within my imagination to grasp, I'm willing to explore it but its going to have to be something interesting and not 'lays eggs' or 'breaths fire' or 'not nice'. It's going to need to be something like genderless, immortal, the whole race is subtly insane, emotionless, born with racial memories, hive minds, or something. That's a racial concept that might be interesting to explore.

Dragonborn? No clue. Don't know how to use them. Don't know what role they'd fit in a story. Don't know how to imagine being one. Not sure that I'd enjoy imagining being one if I knew how. Maybe what I need is out there somewhere, but the problem is that as a race with no mythic connections really, its entirely dependent on the fluff provided by the game designer to make it interesting. Generally, I haven't found that working. You'd need 30 pages or so just to flesh the culture out a bit.

 

[Nivenus]

I think you're assuming those "mythic" traditions are far older than they are.

Before Tolkein revised dwarves for the purpose of his universe, dwarves were more commonly seen as greedy tricksters and craftsmen. More like duergar than stereotypical "honorable brawlers." Elves were elfs (no v) and were dangerous adversaries, beautiful but intensely inhuman and unknowable. They were also, very commonly, not nice, to the point that a millennium ago they were considered, in popular medieval folklore, a variant of demon.

Gnomes have no strong archetype, given that they're really a composition of various European creatures (pixies, brownies, elves, and kobolds to be precise) and halflings didn't even exist. And no, leperauchans were not halflings. If anything, they were gnomes.

Not to mention that, while the word "orc" comes from an old Saxon word for "monster," the modern image of orcs did not originate until Tolkein come along. And even at that point orcs were far different, being the twisted reflection of elves rather than the beastial sub-humans they were portrayed as in classic fantasy after Tolkein or the honorable shamans they've been increasingly seen as since the advent of Warcraft III's new rendition of them.

D&D's races are not based on "ancient and inviolable" traditions. They're just not. There are analogies, yes. But, for the most part, give the designers their due. They pretty much invented the races, just using old names.

In all fairness, the designers for 4e are doing the same sort of thing. Dragonborn? Reptilian/draconic humanoids have been in a surge of popularity for some time now. Same goes for lycanthropic creatures (shifters). They may not have been popular in the 70s when D&D was first made, but take a brief look at modern CRPGs or anime and you'll see that they are now. As are vampires, of course, which almost makes me wonder why they didn't save the dhampyr rules for the PHB2 for added attention.

And while immortal incarnations of good aren't exactly all that popular, devas, like elves or dwarves, draw on hints of an ancient tradition through their name and basic description, but they're really quite different in the flesh.

That's not to say I don't have my problems with 4e creature design from time to time. I'm not sure, for instance, how devas = aasimar and I can't help but think that the new half-orc origin is unnecessary but saying that the new 4e PC races are somehow breaking in on an ancient traditions is simply wrong. It just is. There's nothing particularly ancient about any of the PC races.

Well... I suppose there is one exception. Humans.

 

[Obryn]

Dragonborn? No clue. Don't know how to use them. Don't know what role they'd fit in a story. Don't know how to imagine being one. Not sure that I'd enjoy imagining being one if I knew how. Maybe what I need is out there somewhere, but the problem is that as a race with no mythic connections really, its entirely dependent on the fluff provided by the game designer to make it interesting. Generally, I haven't found that working. You'd need 30 pages or so just to flesh the culture out a bit.

I'll have to disagree with you, but will specifically quote this bit.

I don't think mythic connections make a race easier to role-play, unless you're equating "myth" with "Tolkien." Elves in D&D aren't elves in folklore. Dwarves in D&D are particularly not dwarves in folklore. Both races - and hobbits - more or less reached their D&D incarnations in Tolkien's works. While you can certainly find D&Dish elves and dwarves in folklore, you will find a whole lot of other non-D&Dish elves and dwarves, too.

Also, unless you're going to pull some Campbell or Jung on me and vastly disappoint me, not everyone is aware of this folklore.

You compared various star trek races to elves/dwarves/etc... Now, I'm quite unfamiliar with Star Trek in general, but it seems to me that you're saying there's nothing special about how a race looks, so long as it acts in a stereotypical way. Does this mean I can make all my dragonborn act "orcish" and suddenly they become archetypally valid? Or that I can make all my tieflings act "elven" and we're good?


In short, I don't see your argument. Elves and dwarves are every bit as dependent on game-designer fluff as dragonborn, tieflings, t'skrang, and obsidimen. And yes, all of them basically act like huge stereotypes. Still, I don't think "dwarves drink and love their beards" is innately any easier than "dragonborn prize their honor and love combat."

-O

 

[Garthanos]

Dragonborn? No clue. Don't know how to use them. Don't know what role they'd fit in a story.

I am mangling all the races to suit my perceptions yes even humans... Dragonborn become just more fodder for the grinder

Bet they are fully fleshed out in the novels WOTC is producing, just bought one titled Swordmage. And there will undoubtably be more material about Dragonborn.

I seen a use where DB in a custom 4e setting they looked like humans with the Arogant noble stereotype.. dripping off them and shifted/polymorphed to show there true form inorder to use there race powers... it was presented well.(full culture feel)

As for the other races...

I found way back i resented the divergences from Tolkien (hobbits - halflings do not have any other real heritage and D&D Elves were short fragile versions but otherwise almost identical to tolkeins it was distasteful) So I have always mangled the official races to something different no not Tolkein.. I gave them a number of twists (some science fiction like..) and the legend similarities are cosmetic.

I am much happier with humans in the D&D 4e... gnomes are garden fairies not heroics I miss them not even when they show up in the new phb. I am not that interested in the robot pc... dont want to play "data"

Species relations are way too PC for my blood, but then again if you think about it racial animosity is ugly as hell in real life... guess it doesnt fit in with the points of light world. .. its one of the darker spots of a splotchy dismal reality in which the points of light are just individuals.

But I/we certainly dont have to play that exact world unless our imaginations fail us.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I might actually be convinced to run 4E if I could do it as an all human, all martial gritty S&S game.

I always say the same about AD&D.

*Runs away*

 

[CPT PLAYDOH]

Well, folks, I gotta totally different take on all of this. If you can mass Clone the blue space man fast enough then I think we can all agree that the Sith-Sauron Axis is gonna have a very hard time conquering Middle Earth. It'll at least put a kink in their get-along.

On the other hand the Vamporc half-thing sounds like something the Puppeteers will want to definitely steer clear of. And I'm not sure that either Catwoman or the Kzin will care much for that glowing wolf either.

Eventually though I'm hoping my Asteroid Forged Sun Paladin gets a +12 Dragontonguelightsabre, with the detachable hovercraft and adamantimithril multi-tool.

It'll help him compete with the rubber foot Spider Armed Men of Zebulon Nebulax from the Quasar Consortium of Imperial Wizard World.

But if somebody at WOTC will just give my eldritched-upped Time-Warplock dude a Transforming Battlesuit with built in Tiger-growl teleport then I think I can take Orcus in the Ketzel Wardrum Run at under 3.2978631 parsecs.

It's just a theory, but by gum, I'll betcha he could do it.

(I don't wanna seem like I'm bragging though, so take that for what it is worth.)

Nicely stated and great classic Sci-fi references. 4e is superhero fantasy miniatures with a splash of role-playing tacked on to it. It is not necessarily a bad game, but it looks very different tham the D&D I grew up with. I don't like it, but others are welcome to play what they like. It is a game after all!