D&D General why are dwarves harder to think of varients for?

[cbwjm]

In 3e, dwarves had an ability called stability which gave them a bonus to being shoved or knocked prone while standing on the ground. Maybe the reason you don't often see them at sea is that this ability has an adverse effect which, inspite of their high constitution, makes them prone to getting sea sick.

Or maybe you see a number of seafaring dwarves because this ability grants them instant sea legs, the ground being any solid surface such as the deck of a ship.

 

[Scribe]

As @Voadam says, B/X doesn't have such stat effects. Are B/X dwarves suddenly not dwarves because they don't get +2 to some specific stat? Does this delete their unique identity? This isn't some modern fancy, it's almost as old as the hobby itself. Why was no one up in arms about this 40+ years ago?

Honestly dude, its not 40 years ago.

And if these things are so critical, why have the bonuses changed over time? OD&D and B/X had no bonuses. Most have had a bonus to Con, but some also give Wis, and 4e/5e give the potential option of Con/Str. A Charisma penalty was common in the past, but penalties are gone now. If this is such a rock-bottom essential factor, why has it been so variable?

The real things that make dwarves (and any race) distinct and interesting are their... distinct and interesting characteristics. Features. Stonecunning. Poison resistance. Iron will. Stubbornness. Being a friggin immovable object. Etc. +2 Con is the ultra bland +N Sword of identifying characteristics. Literally almost unnoticeable in most contexts.

Nowhere, ever, have I suggested that ASI trumps the rest of what is 'biological' in terms of what makes a dwarf, a dwarf.

The suggestion however, that ASI does not in any way contribute, however insignificantly in your eyes, to making a dwarf, different from an elf, is simply not a position I'll accept.

That is, thats how it used to be. Now, thanks Tashas, its just 'whatever' and its one less consideration in terms of a character.

 

[FrozenNorth]

He’s not supposed to be the base of dwarf culture. He’s a well-written dwarf character who is intentionally a bit of an outsider to dwarf culture, which is exactly what the fantasy genre needs in order to expand the bounds of what dwarf culture can be.

cough Drizzt cough.

 

[Mind of tempest]

cough Drizzt cough.

drizzt was copied a lot not got a whole new culture.
the reason the drow changed is more to do with our world.

 

[Staffan]

In 3e, dwarves had an ability called stability which gave them a bonus to being shoved or knocked prone while standing on the ground. Maybe the reason you don't often see them at sea is that this ability has an adverse effect which, inspite of their high constitution, makes them prone to getting sea sick.

Or maybe you see a number of seafaring dwarves because this ability grants them instant sea legs, the ground being any solid surface such as the deck of a ship.

The Swedish RPG Eon has dwarves with a very keen sense of balance. The upside is that it allows them to navigate relatively narrow ledges underground without much problem, but the downside is extreme susceptibility to motion sickness.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean dwarves are just... good how they are. Grumpy little diligent guys with beards and beer. It's hard to do variants because everything is a step down.

It's not like elves where the variation is how they're insufferably better than you, or humans where there's no uniformity, or halflings where people don't understand the point and keep trying to ruin it with edge.

The only improvement was making them grubby chaos goblins like in Dwarf Fortress.

 

[bedir than]

@Mind of tempest how many of these ideas are you going to run with?

 

[Charlaquin]

drizzt was copied a lot not got a whole new culture.
the reason the drow changed is more to do with our world.

Of course it’s to do with our world. Art imitates life, which imitates art in a symbiotic cycle. Drizt was one of the first popular drow characters to significantly buck the trends of how drow were portrayed up until that point, which changed what was seen as possible for drow characters to be. That example was imitated over and over again, and eventually, people demanded more diversity from portrayals of drow as a whole, not just a bunch of individual exceptions. A big part of the reason it’s hard to create dwarf variants that still feel dwarvish is that this process hasn’t happened with dwarves.

 

[cbwjm]

The Swedish RPG Eon has dwarves with a very keen sense of balance. The upside is that it allows them to navigate relatively narrow ledges underground without much problem, but the downside is extreme susceptibility to motion sickness.

I love that that is something that already exists in an RPG

 

[Campbell]

Because the conceptual space for elves in D&D is "I am pretty and I am awesome." It's easier to create variants off being awesome than crusty, stubborn, greedy warrior race.