I've reversed my stance on dragonborn and tieflings

[Mercule]

Feh. I still play heroes and I still want aasimar.

Ditto. On the plus side, I inferred that there would be an aasimar-type race (apparently, it's been noted that it's too easy to double the "s", rather than the "a", so they get a new name -- I assume the aasaasin will also be renamed) in the MM that will be playable. It might be in a later PHB, though.

 

[DJCupboard]

I think the Teifling "emo-ness" is going to be too blatant for a Vampire fan. The horns and the jagged chins (not to mention the tails) make it too hard to be a normal member of society trying to fit in despite personal differences irreconsilable with society's expectations. They are already outside that society and have no need to try and fit in - they have a place. They have no oppression to fight againts and no reason to strive for acceptance.

No, (to keep the generalizations going), they've welded a metalhead body onto an emo archetype and I don't think it will have the outcome they intend.

Nonetheless I'm looking forward to playing one.

 

[rounser]

Adding an emo option is surely the best way to go.

What's the warlock then? Chopped liver? There's more than enough emo in that to feed your Black Parade fantasies on for some time. Oh the angst, where is my scarf and black-rimmed glasses? I can't see past this fringe to slit my wrists.

Let's own up, horns look cool in promotional artwork. That's the real reason. Or some survey revealed that +2 to dex and int was more popular than +2 to wis and cha, because I'm sure 3E players had flavour in mind when powerbuilding their PCs.

Sorry, just a bit cynical about it all...and I picked the tiefling as the "new drow" and all, but note that the drow wasn't in the core. Maybe it should have been. Drow and elf, tiefling and aasimar - remove "eladrin" and dragonborn and there's a nice symmetry there, with less arbitrary D&Disms, because both sides of the coin are present, giving balanced flavour to match that balanced crunch which is oh-so-important.

For bonus points, rename tiefling and aasimar to demonblood and angelblood or something, so they're self-explanatory. Or use proper english, like cambion. Words that "survive" in english are generally better than anything you care to fabricate, because they've passed a usability test. They sound proper, unlike "eladrin" for instance.

Overall a much better core than what we're getting, IMO, and I've only spent the time typing here in thinking about it. That probably shows, but it seems no less arbitrary than what we're being presented with, surveys or not.

Speaking of surveys, are dragonborn born out of the newbie players who know nothing about the game saying, "Dungeons and Dragons? Okay, I want to be a dragon!" Because you're not really giving them that with dragonborn. Give them the real thing, say I, give them a playable dragon. Permutate them into a playable PC. It would be genuinely less intrusive than dragonborn are, and dilute the game's dragons less than this does. Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink....Draconic everything but the dragons themselves.

The only other reason why "survey says dragon-races are in" is probably for powergaming reasons (i.e. 3E half-dragon powers and stat gains), or related to that marketing radar blip that books with "dragon" in the title sell more. Both bad reasons to compromise the IP in the core IMO.

 

[hazel monday]

Adding an emo option is surely the best way to go. You get something to draw the Vampire kids in, but you keep all the Merlin, Conan and Legolas-type characters the current fanbase likes so much.

Do Vampire kids still exist though? I thought they disappeared in the 90s, along with grunge music and that horrible "talk to the hand" expression.
I honestly wasn't aware that there were enough of them left to constitute a demographic. Well,I guess that's what I get for basing my opinions offa personal experience rather than intranet marketing surveys.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Classic RPGs remain classic because they avoid dating themselves in such an obvious manner.

I dunno, man, I get a definate "70's" vibe from the old D&D stuff I read from circa the 1e era. Conan and LotR and pulp genre fit snugly with the last fading remnants of the '60's love of the noble savage and delightful hallucinagens. It all seems like it was created by people who came of age in the 1960's, holding some of the tenents of that era, but synthesizing them in a new way. 2e updated it a little, to mesh with some of the genre and Tolkein knock-offs, so it seemed like it was from the late '70s/early '80s

Much like 3e seemed the product of people coming of age in the mid to late '80s.

And 4e resembles the product of people coming of age in the '90s.

I bet 5e will have an even stronger Japanese-fantasy thrust and a concern with being portable for videogames, because it will be based on the imaginations of people coming of age in an era of Pokemon and Naruto.

D&D is a game of pop fantasy. If it wasn't dated, I don't think it'd be doing it's job very well.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Do Vampire kids still exist though? I thought they disappeared in the 90s, along with grunge music and that horrible "talk to the hand" expression.

I believe Vampire is still the #2 rpg, though not quite as popular relative to D&D as it was in the 90s. Goths are definitely still around. They've been a remarkably long lived subculture.

 

[Mercule]

Let's own up, horns look cool in promotional artwork.

Actually, they look pretty stupid. The tiefling art sucks away my desire to play them as much as the flavor text does.

Between the two, I'm left wondering what kind of world would not have wiped the race out millennia ago. Come on, you could get a few centuries of justification for genocide from the creation legend alone. And the write up doesn't really make it sound like continuing prejudice is unwarranted.

I have no problem with playing fiend-touched characters. One of my favorite characters was (basically -- this was Hero) a cambion warlock (birthright, not pacts). He had golden skin that could be mistaken for tanned under most lights or at a distance. He didn't look like a fiend straight out of a horror movie. That's just lame. At the very least, WotC should have kept the fiendish features subtle. I should never have to wonder whether the tiefling gets a ramming attack or tail grapple.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

Oh the angst, where is my scarf and black-rimmed glasses?

Hey, now, no making fun of my Doctor Who inspired fashion choices.

Why is it so bad for PCs to have wings and a breath weapon (probably after level 10), when the Wizard can cast Fly and Lightning Bolt by level 5?

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see D&D through Fantasy lenses. I see Fantasy through D&D lenses. When watching Lord of the Rings, my brain kept saying "Just cast Meteor Swarm, you tool!" whenever Gandalf was fighting something with a stick and sharpened bit of metal. I've read the books, I just think D&D style fantasy is more fun.

It goes back to my Warlocks are cooler than Paladins theory: It takes a bigger hero to sacrifice his eternal soul to bring about good in the world than it does to be a goody two-shoes who knows he's going to Elysium when he kicks it.

-TRRW

(PS: The Dragonborn flavor in R&C is great, the Tiefling flavor is a bit below par; but that's how it's gotta be, sometimes.)

 

[Doug McCrae]

It sounds like Nightcrawler of the X-Men could be a big part of the inspiration for the 4e tiefling. I always felt the X-Men were a huge influence on the 3e sorcerer and warlock too with their natural powers and 'feared and hated' bit.

 

[rounser]

Why is it so bad for PCs to have wings and a breath weapon (probably after level 10), when the Wizard can cast Fly and Lightning Bolt by level 5?

Because you're growing racial features with feats. It kills my suspension of disbelief in the same way that taking puberty as a feat would. Simulation defines what is simulated, ala what they did with Eberron, rather than the other way around as it should be. Regressive, unnecessary introduction of D&Disms purely for design convenience.