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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9350426" data-attributes="member: 6790260">While true, half-orc did not gain nearly as much cachet, despite being well ahead of its time relative to other media. It wasn't until Warcraft came along that orcish PCs started to really gain traction. Likewise, it wasn't until Drizzt made a pathway for 99.95% of all drow to be brooding loners-with-a-posse rebels-against-evil that drow really got traction. Etc.Usually, D&D races need an archetype first, before they really take off. Tieflings already had that archetype because "half-demon child" has tons of precedent across myth and folklore.Tieflings had been around well before that, and I don't really think 4e made them explode.Dragonborn, on the other hand? Absolutely yes. They broke the mold--in part because, unlike pretty much every other similar thing, they didn't have a particular literary or folkloric archetype to draw from. Yet they absolutely took off in popularity, and have if anything actually become more popular in 5e (despite, ironically, being significantly weaker, almost-inarguably the weakest PHB race.)The main reason for this, I think, was that dragonborn tapped into something with inherent cool factor (dragons), and that 4e actually gave them a legitimately interesting and worthwhile backstory (scions of lost Arkhosia, carrying on a proud, noble, but also tragic legacy). Unlike most attempts at creating a new race, which just sort of give them a skirt-length presentation, dragonborn arrived with a fully-fledged mythos to them, and it got more support with time.From what I've heard, aardling is out, and the only "new" race is goliath. Giants are still cool, but perhaps not as cool as dragons (don't @ me, I'm just commenting on general cultural cachet). Aasimar aren't new and I don't think adding them to the PHB will make any meaningful/long-term difference to them.It gives them prominence and legitimacy, but it doesn't guarantee that they stick in folks' minds. Gith, for example, have Dak'kon and now Lae'zel as poster characters, so if they were included in the 5.5e PHB, that might be a combo that resulted in substantially increased attention. The question is whether that attention has staying power. Dragons will always be cool because they represent power and majesty, regardless of what culture you look at; it is inherently a subversion to make a weak or cutesy dragon. Gith may not be able to sustain a PHB-driven boost, but certainly they'd get a boost, and probably never completely recede back to their old numbers, if they were added to the PHB.</blockquote>

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