D&D 5E Tell me about your tieflings

[Sacrosanct]

As others have said, I don't really use them but I don't ban them. I couldn't care less about the backstory. If a PC wants a tiefling, it's up to them do figure out how much they want to put into it. Then again, I've never tied myself down to FR lore in my campaign. I've always created my own lore and worlds and just drag and dropped adventures into it

 

[Xeviat]

In my setting, Angels and Devils are related to humans. As such, they can still interbreed with some success. Tieflings are devil touched, not any other fiend.

Then again, in my setting, "demon" is a word for evil spirits/fey, so someone with demon blood would be a dark elf.


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[Shadowdweller00]

Tieflings to me represent the nadir of the "edginess" D&D was desperately trying to cash in on in the 90s as an attempt to meet the World of Darkness style games on their own terms.

Yeah...no. Tieflings are a logical outgrowth of planetouched - creatures with a touch of extraplanar ancestry - if you're going to have celestial planetouched (aasimar) and genasi (elemental planetouched). Unsuprisingly, the first supplement where they appear includes ALL of the above.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Yeah...no. Tieflings are a logical outgrowth of planetouched - creatures with a touch of extraplanar ancestry - if you're going to have celestial planetouched (aasimar) and genasi (elemental planetouched). Unsuprisingly, the first supplement where they appear includes ALL of the above.

I actually lump all of Planescape into the category I described. So, "yeah, yes.'

 

[Waterbizkit]

I actually lump all of Planescape into the category I described. So, "yeah, yes.'

Oh look. It's an opinion being stated like it's a clear fact! Who would've guessed? And you got it in on the first page or so of the thread too. Thank goodness, I'd have hated to wait. There's nothing wrong with disliking tieflings, but maybe take it down a notch tiger.

Moving on...

I've never been too bothered about their origins and like a few folk have said so far, I like to leave that to the player. Now aesthetically? That's a different kettle of fish. The newer tieflings have seemed too overtly fiendish to me. The older style of tiefling, at least as much as I can remember, could be as subtly or overtly fiendish as the player wanted. There's something I liked about that.

 

[Tormyr]

Long ago there was a pair of wars between eladrin and humans. At the end of the second war, the eladrin goddess physically manifested in an attempt to aid her people. She was killed, which caused a number of effects, including all the present eladrin being reformed into the start of the Tiefling race.

 

[MechaPilot]

I've used Tieflings both in the planar mutt sense of AD&D 2e's Planescape (and 3e, which carried on with the same background) and in the resulting from being touched by devilish/demonic forces sense from 4e (usually resulting from pacts, or being twisted up by possession). I've also allowed being a Tiefling to represent being half fiend. Regardless of which background is being used, I use the variable appearance of the AD&D 2e Planescape version, only I let players decide on the appearance.

Tieflings are one of my favorite races for a few reasons.

1) Variance. Tieflings can have such a broad range of appearances, reflecting different aspects of their fiendish influences.

2) There are plenty of role-playing opportunities to be had stemming from the tiefling's infernal ancestry (succumbing to or rebelling against it) and from being untrusted and outcast because of how your were born.

3) Because I allow Tieflings to represent half-fiends, it also adds some consistency. After all, if you have fiends whose whole shtick is seducing mortals, it only makes sense if there's some fiendish offspring from that.

 

[Harzel]

Tieflings to me represent the nadir of the "edginess" D&D was desperately trying to cash in on in the 90s as an attempt to meet the World of Darkness style games on their own terms.

I actually lump all of Planescape into the category I described. So, "yeah, yes.'

Sure looks like an opinion to me, and appears clearly stated as such.

Oh look. It's an opinion being stated like it's a clear fact! Who would've guessed? And you got it in on the first page or so of the thread too. Thank goodness, I'd have hated to wait. There's nothing wrong with disliking tieflings, but maybe take it down a notch tiger.

Oh, the irony. So yeah, maybe take it down a notch.

 

[Sunseeker]

3) Because I allow Tieflings to represent half-fiends, it also adds some consistency. After all, if you have fiends whose whole shtick is seducing mortals, it only makes sense if there's some fiendish offspring from that.

I tend to like this approach, as I've never really felt like anyone ever properly addressed "grades" of "planetouched". There always seems to be half-breeds, and then everything else. What about 3/4ths breeds? What about 1/32nd breeds? What happens when a tiefling has a baby with a tiefling of a different infernal parentage? What about when a tiefling has a baby with an aasimar?

You're either a pure-blooded human or demon or you're a mixed-blood. The fact that you mother/father was a demon does not predispose you to greater power than someone who is 10 generations removed from their demon ancestors. In my games the explanation of why one tiefling is more demonic than another is two factor: luck of the draw (magical blood is funny like that) and active enhancement of the bloodline. Drawing from a variety of sources I allow my players to take "racial enhancement feats" to gain more demonic physical or magical aspects and to seek out powerful, dangerous, forbidden, lost and ancient rituals to gain "boons" to enhance their "touched" side, to the point of full-blooded-ness, if they're willing to go the distance and take the risk.

 

[Mad_Jack]

I've always gone with whichever version of background better fits the current game I'm running, and if neither one is strongly indicated I'm fine with any sort of mix of the two.
To wit, there can be both groups of true-breeding Tieflings of common appearance and lone individuals whose heritage has manifested in different ways.
A player basically gets to decide on their appearance and background, although I generally add the basic caveat that Tiefling (or Aasimar/Genasi/whatever, but especially Tiefling) heritage tends to breed true and dominant - the more Tiefling blood you have, the more altered your appearance is (exceptions existing, of course), and it can't really be bred out of the bloodline at all.
For example, if two non-Tieflings (or Aasimar/Genasi/whatever) with even a hint of plane-touched heritage were to breed, their child would have more plane-touched heritage in them than either one of the parents, and if that child was a PC could choose to use the stats for the appropriate plane-touched race rather than human if they wanted. If that child then later bred with another plane-touched, or even someone with a hint of plane-touched heritage, the resulting grandchild would generally end up using the game stats for the appropriate plane-touched race (unless they were also a PC and chose to use the human stats because it fit their narrative backstory better)...