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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 4778089" data-attributes="member: 3820">The dirtiest trick my cousin ever pulled in the course of DMing was make a gas spore laugh at us. Like, turn at us and chuckle. I mean, come on. That was just rude.I've never used a gorbel, but now I'm tempted just as an intellectual exercise. I have an ugly craving to set them up like a Puzzle Bobble (Bust-a-Move) level and see if the players can pick out the right one to target to start the good chain reaction and not the bad one. (Oh god now I am a step closer to using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prinny" target="_blank">prinnies</a> in D&D...)Well, remember that from the perspective of someone who started with BECMI (or really just BE), an equally radical departure from the implied setting came when we picked up AD&D for the first time. Good and evil as alignments? Race and class tracked separately? Blue dragons and white dragons are evil now? (A particularly harsh blow to those of us who liked having them as potential allies.) Half-orcs? Gnomes? Well, in my experience, you could get the exact same disconnect with gnomes. In the dawn times before Dragonlance or World of Warcraft, the only previous experience one could be expected to have with gnomes was lawn ornaments or the Gnomes art book, and the animated movie based on said book. There was really no other reason to see them — gut reaction only — as something other than silly little people with red hats beloved by children and old ladies. If you asked the prepubescent me of the time, I would have said I had no idea why they were considered possibilities for heroic sword-and-sorcery or high fantasy adventurers. And they're still controversial.But having seen what people have done with gnomes since, I can't help but think that the problem with dragonborn is similar. They pose a stumbling block to some, seem like a good fit to others, and they react well to reskinning. They can also, of course, be banned — but I don't think that 4e is at all unworthy for including them as an option. If anything, I think it's neat to have a core race that looks considerably more inhuman, because that opens up thoughts about not just what races you can play, but what you can do with race as a mechanic.</blockquote>

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