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<blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7784264" data-attributes="member: 5142">Though I respect your preference, I nevertheless disagree. I never really cared for the 2E Planescape tieflings, which often did lean on the &quot;misunderstood outsiders&quot; angle pretty hard as well. Though I understand that the idea that they could be anything in terms of morphology, appearance, culture, history, etc. works in their favor for some people, it also worked against them for mine. It felt odd to me that tieflings would just be the &quot;samey&quot; from having fiends as their background or even from being plane-touched. After all, weren't demons and devils diametrically opposed? But a tiefling descendant of a demon could look the same as a tiefling descendant of a devil? Not to mention the yugoloths. It wasn't until 4E that I found tieflings a compelling playable bioform. To reiterate from my earlier point, 4E gave them a connection to the world. They were not &quot;outsiders&quot; from the planes, but, rather, they are descendants of human nobles of Bael Turath that sought to save and expand their kingdom by making dark pacts with devils. (Which is ironically not far removed from what Cheliax in Golarion did.) That empire would nevertheless fall later in conflict with the draconic kingdom of Arkhosia, and their tiefling descendants represent the hubris of that diabolic pact. This is far less Drow and far more Faustian. This gave me a much more defined sense of tieflings and their place in the world. It gave them a mythos that amounted to more than mutants of some distant fiend but instead to pact made between devils and human mortals. While I understand that some people miss the morphological variation of tieflings from earlier editions, I have found the new direction more new player friendly to the extent that it's easier for new players to spot a tiefling in the art as opposed to a satyr or something.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Aldarc, post: 7784264, member: 5142"] Though I respect your preference, I nevertheless disagree. I never really cared for the 2E Planescape tieflings, which often did lean on the "misunderstood outsiders" angle pretty hard as well. Though I understand that the idea that they could be anything in terms of morphology, appearance, culture, history, etc. works in their favor for some people, it also worked against them for mine. It felt odd to me that tieflings would just be the "samey" from having fiends as their background or even from being plane-touched. After all, weren't demons and devils diametrically opposed? But a tiefling descendant of a demon could look the same as a tiefling descendant of a devil? Not to mention the yugoloths. It wasn't until 4E that I found tieflings a compelling playable bioform. To reiterate from my earlier point, 4E gave them a connection to the world. They were not "outsiders" from the planes, but, rather, they are descendants of human nobles of Bael Turath that sought to save and expand their kingdom by making dark pacts with devils. (Which is ironically not far removed from what Cheliax in Golarion did.) That empire would nevertheless fall later in conflict with the draconic kingdom of Arkhosia, and their tiefling descendants represent the hubris of that diabolic pact. This is far less Drow and far more Faustian. This gave me a much more defined sense of tieflings and their place in the world. It gave them a mythos that amounted to more than mutants of some distant fiend but instead to pact made between devils and human mortals. While I understand that some people miss the morphological variation of tieflings from earlier editions, I have found the new direction more new player friendly to the extent that it's easier for new players to spot a tiefling in the art as opposed to a satyr or something. [/QUOTE]

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