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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nivenus" data-source="post: 6401845" data-attributes="member: 71756">I think those are valid criticisms though. As I said earlier in the thread, I wasn't too thrilled by 4e's experimental (and ultimately abandoned) plan to describe half-orcs as an artificial race either. And again, the issue with eladrin is as much tied up in the idea of who or what is "elven" as it is about the planes.To make a non-planar comparison, I think a lot of people would be upset if WotC came along and said dwarves were - by default - the descendants of a human nation who were forced underground and bred as diminutive slaves by orcs for subterranean mining. Some of the pieces of the old lore are there - their subterranean environment, their frequent occupation as miners, their enmity with dwarves - but taken as a whole the idea clashes with what people expect from D&D dwarves. That doesn't even mean the idea is a bad one, it just means that it's not what people want or expect.Likewise the change to tieflings. For two editions tieflings were defined a certain way and people liked the concept behind the race. In 4e, WotC decided to redefine them as part of it's rebranding of D&D, making them a more traditional race with a single look and backstory. That wasn't what a lot of people wanted or expected though, hence the backlash.For the record, while I prefer 2e/3e tieflings to 4e tieflings I think there is room for both versions of the race under the same label (just as there's room for both core and Eberron halflings within the same race) and I generally just treat 4e tieflings as a particular subrace. This is in contrast to - say - archons, which are a bit more difficult to reconcile under the same name.</blockquote>

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