D&D General Should Bearded Female Dwarves be the Default?

[Alzrius]

Don't know, Raphael is too busy hooking up with a fox chick to confirm.

Props to you for the Ninjara reference.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

How are you defining meaningful in this context?

As in being able to get out the front door of your house and go to school/work/the pub without having an existential breakdown brought on by unchecked skepticism, and being able to at least put on the act that everything and everybody you're interacting with is real and not some figment of imagination.

How do I get you to drop this line of conversation? Set you on fire? Shove you into the midday sun? Get Dora the Explorer to solve your riddle? Or hire the Three Billy Goats Gruff to knock you of your bridge?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As in being able to get out the front door of your house and go to school/work/the pub without having an existential breakdown brought on by unchecked skepticism, and being able to at least put on the act that everything and everybody you're interacting with is real and not some figment of imagination.

Why would any of that be relevant on a forum about a fantasy role playing game? We are discussing things that do not, in fact, exist.

 

[the Jester]

Your poll needs a "In some campaigns" option, which isn't really reflected in your poll ('a possible trait, but not universal' sounds to me like "some do in my campaign, but some don't in my campaign"- which is a fine answer, but not th same as mine).

In my campaign, female dwarves grow beards just like male dwarves. In fact, most non-dwarves just assume that any dwarf they meet is a man, much as most non-elves pretty much assume that any elf they meet is a woman.

A beardless female dwarf is either a child, has suffered an accident or mutilation, or is a freak. A male dwarf with a beardless wife is seen as someone who wants to sleep with children.

 

[Alzrius]

Warcraft is I think the biggest property to divert to beardless dwarf women, and a lot of properties have followed that pattern.

For what it's worth, here's what the Everquest TTRPG Player's Handbook says on the subject (p. 34):

[Female dwarves] are more likely to keep their hair in tight buns, though a few dwarven women also grow neatly trimmed facial hair.

 

[Weiley31]

Props to you for the Ninjara reference.

Thank you! I REMEMBER Ninjara well. But it was actually a reference to the current IDW TMNT comics where Raph has a thing for a former foot clan mutant fox ninja named Alopex.
Regardless: Raph just seems to have a thing for foxy (pun intended) ladies. I hope though, this relationship has a better ending, unlike Ninjara.

 

[Weiley31]

Three Billy Goats Gruff to knock you of your bridge?

Who are actually revealed to be three troll hating druids in the plot twist.

 

[MGibster]

Sometimes I just marvel out the odd topics that generate so many replies. God bless you, En World.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Scout Harding is a Dwarf. She has superior vision in the dark compared to humans, she could not practice magic no matter how hard she tired, she does not enter the Fade when she dreams.

Now like Dagna, if she chooses to identify as a Mage by studying magic she would still be unable to cast spells because she is still a dwarf, but I would still acknowledge her mageness.

 

[Charlaquin]

How would you tell? You are basing your definition of species on myth?

In a world where those myths are true, yes.

Closer to the real world pre-DNA definition of species, but you go on to explain why that doesn't work in fantasyland.

Again, depends on the setting. Sometimes it’s a reliable indicator, sometimes it isn’t.

I'm shorter and stockier than the average human, does that make me a dwarf?[

Members of the Mbuti tribe have an average height of less than 4 foot 11', but are definitely human.

Umm... You do realize the dwarves we’re talking about are fictional, right? No, you being short doesn’t make you a fairy tale creature, and the Mbuti tribe aren’t a different species.