D&D 5E why has none of the wisdom races caught on?

[Mind of tempest]

I'm honestly glad they didn't set out to "fill the boxes" for this. I am fine with fantasy races having different distributions of ability scores compared to a baseline 3-18 bell curve, but I'm not keen on designing racial options just so there's a races with a natural advantage for each class.

But if you're curious about the hill dwarf/mountain dwarf divide, check out Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. They cover it there.

I read it but somehow I still do not see it, I got the Underdark evil dwarves are super different but not hill dwarves, what is the difference in your opinion?

Number 1 was that wisdom as a casting stat for Clerics and Druids was not that important, because a lot of what they use spellcasting for doesn't have saving throws. I feel like you didn't actually read what I said if you immediately point out it's a casting stat and therefore important...

Tieflings and dragonborn aren't "Standard Fantasy", it's true! Dragonborn and Tieflings exist in the PHB because 4e did it's absolute best to break the mold and do something different for differentness's sake. Dragonborn in order to slake people's thirst to play Dragons ('Cause there's always someone who wants to) and Tieflings because holy crap they were a huge hit with the LGBTQIAP+ community!

So many people slapped the roof of a Tiefling and said "You can fit so many traumatic allegories into this bad boy" and ran with it. It's also why they come in a rainbow of colors in artwork while the book says they run the gamut from normal human skin tones to red.

This look red to you?! (I love tieflings, obviously, 'cause I'm B and T, myself, but, y'know >.>)

That said, demons and dragons and half-demons and half-dragons appear in so much fantasy stuff in the past 30 years that I think they've kind of -become- standard fantasy, at this point, even if they're not Tolkienesque fantasy, per se? Stuff like Healing Potions are Standard Fantasy, these days, but were never part of Tolkienesque High Fantasy, y'know?

Gith, on the other hand, are very much D&D Niche. Like. Straight up protected IP. Not out in the greater consciousness.

you have a point but it is why is there no popular wisdom race?

I don't think the races missing from the PHB are a standard fantasy issue - I think it's more that the 5e PHB tried to put in every race and almost every class that had ever been in a PHB before. Firbolg, githzerai, shifters and kalashtar were never in a roll-out PHB before, while tieflings and dragonborn had. I don't think there was ever any thought of including them (if they were going to include a race that hadn't appeared in a PHB before I suspect they would have included the warforged).

As for why they haven't caught on - I suspect that it's mostly lack of exposure. I think shifters could be really popular given more exposure, for example - they're animal/human hybrids and it's not like that isn't something people are into. But even in Eberron IME shifters tend to take a back seat to more visibly cool races like changelings and warforged.

shifters look to human for that market as diet furry is not desirable for whatever reason, I hear more people wanting to play gnolls than shifters.

It's weird how the uniform teifling design hit it so far out of the park that it broke a window in the neighboring hotel, but then the dragonborn somehow missed every feature people wanted in dragon folk, including the tail they just gave the teifling.

on this, we have an absolute agreement the lack of a tail is just disturbing.

 

[Amrûnril]

I'd view it as more or less a coincidence. The races in the PHB are there for historic, narrative and aesthetic reasons, not because of their assoiated ability scores. And if we look at ability score associations as random (this isn't strictly accurate, but it's an informative baseline), a given ability score has about a 20% chance of not being represented as a primary score in a book with 9 races.

 

[Baron Opal II]

None of them are all that 'sexy': Space mummies, cow giants, shifters, whose art issue has been discussed at length here before, and Go'auld who are also psionics replete with all of 5e's failures with psionics.

Strangely, I've found people very interested in playing githyanki and no one is interested in githzerai. I don't know if it is a "bad boy" attraction, where githzerai are just weird monks, or what. Githyanki have an INT bonus, right?

And gods above, yes, if I'm playing a dragon-born I'm going to have a tail, breath fire, and someday have wings.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Strangely, I've found people very interested in playing githyanki and no one is interested in githzerai. I don't know if it is a "bad boy" attraction, where githzerai are just weird monks, or what. Githyanki have an INT bonus, right?

And gods above, yes, if I'm playing a dragon-born I'm going to have a tail, breath fire, and someday have wings.

strength and int an eldrich knights bread and butter, maybe they played the new videogame? otherwise yeah it is likely the bad boy thing as it can't be the aesthetic as they look terrible.
I can live without the wings as dm get twitch about wings for some reason but the tail just seems so essential.

what is a cool aesthetic that has not been done to death by the good guys or bad guys?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Strangely, I've found people very interested in playing githyanki and no one is interested in githzerai. I don't know if it is a "bad boy" attraction, where githzerai are just weird monks, or what. Githyanki have an INT bonus, right?

I suspect it's the villain thing plus the hope of someday getting a red dragon.

And gods above, yes, if I'm playing a dragon-born I'm going to have a tail, breath fire, and someday have wings.

My dragonsired have a full on shapeshift from base species to dragon mode where they scale up, grow claws and pop wings and a tail.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I suspect it's the villain thing plus the hope of someday getting a red dragon.

My dragonsired have a full on shapeshift from base species to dragon mode where they scale up, grow claws and pop wings and a tail.

ah, obviously it is being a dragon rider that is oddly not a good guy thing in dnd and that bugs me most mightily.

I think an MMO had a similar idea once for its half-dragon people?

 

[Vaalingrade]

WE were just talking about that. FFXIV?

 

[Baron Opal II]

strength and int an eldrich knights bread and butter, maybe they played the new videogame? otherwise yeah it is likely the bad boy thing as it can't be the aesthetic as they look terrible.
I can live without the wings as dm get twitch about wings for some reason but the tail just seems so essential.

what is a cool aesthetic that has not been done to death by the good guys or bad guys?

The aesthetic is part of the draw for me. Kind of a scrap equipped fighter from the jetsam of the planes.

For wisdom classes, I expect that there isn't something that really calls out as archtypal for clerics or druids. Maybe the firbolg and druids, given time?

 

[RuinousPowers]

otherwise yeah it is likely the bad boy thing as it can't be the aesthetic as they look terrible.

Red dragon riders wielding special powerful magic swords in service to their deathless queen vs Monks. One can only wonder why one has inspired imagination more than the other. We may never know.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The aesthetic is part of the draw for me. Kind of a scrap equipped fighter from the jetsam of the planes.

For wisdom classes, I expect that there isn't something that really calls out as archtypal for clerics or druids. Maybe the firbolg and druids, given time?

cleric, druids and monk that is at least two whole subraces right there.

WE were just talking about that. FFXIV?

no idea as I am not an MMO player are they look just like humans with horns stuck to them if so then it must be them.

Red dragon riders wielding special powerful magic swords in service to their deathless queen vs Monks. One can only wonder why one has inspired imagination more than the other. We may never know.

why is it the evil races get all the cool stuff it is just shameful good is not supposed to be dull and uninteresting nor should neutral for that matter.