Happily protecting the goodrightfun since 1999. Muwaha ha ha ha! :cool:

Quote from: RPGPundit;1066672Take a look at the DnD tag on twitter

This was your most heinous and unforgivable mistake.

You took something on Twitter seriously.

To give 4E (the edition that made Dragonborn and Tieflings core races) credit, its Nentir Vale setting wove both Dragonborn and Tieflings pretty well into the setting's backstory; arguably better than it did for elves, dwarves and halflings (both also got their own 60-ish page books devoted to their lore and place in the world).

Dragonborn get a rather mythic creation myth; when the dragon god Io was cleaved in two (the the halves becoming Bahamut and Tiamat) during the Dawn War, the Dragonborn were born wherever his blood spilled upon the Earth. While the chromatic and metallic dragons (created by Io before his demise) were naturally drawn to the aspect of Io that most resembled them, the Dragonborn being born of neither half were free to choose between good and evil.

Eventually the Dragonborn founded the Arkosian Empire which sought to conquer its neighbor, the human kingdom of Bael Torath. On the verge of losing, the desperate leaders of Bael Torath turned to the dark god Asmodeus to destroy the Arkosian Empire. In a dread month-long ritual involving mass sacrifices, Asmodeus infused the nobles of Bael Torath and all their vassals and descendants with a bit of his fallen divine essence... transforming them into Tieflings.

Then Asmodeus carried out their poorly worded will. True to the letter of the bargain the Arkosian Empire was shattered, but that destruction also obliterated Arkosia's neighbors as well... destroying Bael Torath as well. The survivors of the other neighboring kingdoms blamed the Tieflings for the devestation and that blood libel has been carried to one degree or another ever since.

It also cleared the decks so that the kingdom of Neranth could one day rise to become one of the most powerful empires in history (until it too collapsed just a hundred years before the present day of the campaign world... leaving its border colonies in the Nentir Vale to fend for themselves and in desperate need of heroes).

Honestly, in the Nentir Vale setting Dragonborn and Tieflings make more sense as PC races than a lot of the bog standard D&D races do. Hell, halflings don't get much development beyond being river nomads (so they're in the Nentir Vale because it has rivers they can travel and trade on).

Which I think goes back to the point a few pages back that the problem isn't so much weird creatures as PCs, it's that in a lot of settings there's little consideration given to that race's actual place in the world.

Quote from: Chris24601;1067042Which I think goes back to the point a few pages back that the problem isn't so much weird creatures as PCs, it's that in a lot of settings there's little consideration given to that race's actual place in the world.

I agree. I also feel that this gets made harder the more races they try to shoehorn into a setting. Honestly, the Ravnica setting at least dispenses with some of the classic D&D races in order to make room for its unique ones (OK, really because that's what was in the cards), so I have to give it some credit. OTOH, settings like Eberron expressly say that everything in D&D is found in the setting, and this isn't really a positive thing.

Quote from: Omega;1067037This was your most heinous and unforgivable mistake.

You took something on Twitter seriously.

Dndgate is literally also stupid. This is Pundit trying to politicize a hashtag as he is pointing his finger at SJW for politicizing  dndgate. Empty rhetoric across both sides.

Quote from: Baulderstone;1066787Gygax would weep to see the carefully constructed ecology of the world presented is his original Monster Manual turning into a mish-mash of influences. Next they will be tossing in crashed spaceships, crossing it over with tonally different works like those of Lewis Carroll, or allowing people to play balrogs.

And Edgar Rice Burroughs--there were wandering monster charts for Barsoom (but no stats for them); I played a green martian in an OD&D campaign. Second favorite character, behind an elf character. Add in that the original rules for the Reincarnation spell gave you a random monster or humanoid. One player's character ended up a giant squid but didn't really get any adventuring opportunities.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1066789I just want to say, the majority of players *aren't* like this, but it's when you play Adventurer's League that you're basically playing Russian Roulette. It's like taking a dive into the YouTube comment section for inspiring discourse. Often the people that play AL exclusively, are the kinds that are too dysfunctional to participate in a real group and got kicked out, or don't want to bother with any continuity and just hoard loot and EXP.

That said, there are plenty of good folks out there, but it's definitely trying to find a diamond in the rough.

I've played in a lot of AL games. I have not met anyone I would describe as a bad person; certainly none as bad as the haters you can find here. Don't be a hater, mAcular Chaotic.

In fairness, I gather that some people here have had bad experiences in AL that seem to stem from poor organizers. Good organizers would clean it up. No organizer, like the non-organized play everyone here seems to laud, would seem more prone to being Russian roulette; but maybe if you never play with anyone you haven't already played with for decades you'll be OK. Maybe.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1066678No, we are just getting old.
We were raised on READING Tolkien and such.

These kids were raised on WATCHING Pokemon, My Little Pony, Phineas and Ferb, and such. Games like Skyrim have let these kids play cat people and lizard men for years even in a setting that is fairly traditional.

Tabaxi and Dragonborn are more the norm in my open library games than the wood elf or mountain dwarf.

We either yell "Get off my lawn!" or just roll with it.

Or you can use stuff like Game of Thrones to encourage newbs to see the virtues of a human-only campaign.

Quote from: Mistwell;1066841Data disagrees with your guessimate.

Does it? Because for starters D&D Beyond is not necessarily where the new-wave players are mostly hanging out. There's likely to be a larger percentage of long-term players who will tend to play more conventional races.

And yet, even with all that, there's still 31.94% of players on there making non-conventional races. Nearly one-third of players on D&D beyond making weirdo races, and they don't even have tabaxi there as an option!

Quote from: Omega;1066676As for people making up their odd characters. Thats been a part of D&D since the get-go. A Balrog? A Vampire? those were some early characters.

Gygax was soft. He should have slapped Mike M down the moment he gave voice to that stupid idea. Melt the snowflakes with the fire of righteous DM fury! The hobby would have been better for it. Start as you mean to go on.

Oh, and real gamers don't twitter.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1067831Does it? Because for starters D&D Beyond is not necessarily where the new-wave players are mostly hanging out. There's likely to be a larger percentage of long-term players who will tend to play more conventional races.

And yet, even with all that, there's still 31.94% of players on there making non-conventional races. Nearly one-third of players on D&D beyond making weirdo races, and they don't even have tabaxi there as an option!

OK, I'm comparing the thread title with this.

1) "Apparently no one in 5e plays humans, dwarves, elves or halflings anymore."

vs.

2) "Nearly one-third of players on D&D beyond making weirdo races"

Quote from: RPGPundit;1067827Or you can use stuff like Game of Thrones to encourage newbs to see the virtues of a human-only campaign.

Useful if the world you're playing in is (largely) human-only, but it doesn't seem so fitting if the world has been established as having many other races/species/ancestries other than human that live among the humans. For example, I wouldn't try to push a human-only gaming experience in Earthdawn or Shadowrun, but I would love to run a Conan game where humans are the only option.

Quote from: Aglondir;1066895Thanks for that link, that is awesome. It confirms theee of my anecdotal observations-- the dragonborn paladin, elf ranger, and especially the tiefling warlock-- are popular 5E combos. But what really amazes me, to the point of non-belief, is that human fighters are the most popular choice.

That's because human fighters are the best race/class combination in D&D. Always have been, always will be.

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1066968This is literally the stupidest thing to complain about in other peoples dnd games. Why do you give a shit? Not your table and not your rules, mate.

Stop gatekeeping.

So now "gatekeeping" is complaining about a bunch of kids on an Internet messageboard? Dude, get a grip.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1067827Or you can use stuff like Game of Thrones to encourage newbs to see the virtues of a human-only campaign.

Again, I hear you and would probably rather play in "your" game rather than the ones I tend to run. Do not get me wrong, I love what I get to play but it is not my perfect choice.

That said:

1) I'm not suggesting to a 11-17 year old they go read or watch any Game of Thrones.  I have numerous kids from grade to high school coming in to the library to play. The first time little darling asks mommy about Martin's incest fetish because I suggested a "good read", I'm out of a library gig.

2) Kids are savvy. Most of them have already gotten online and researched what they want to play (gnarly Tiefling Warlock dude!) before they come to the first game. The cat is out of the bag before I can even suggest a "human only" campaign.

And that's ok. I have accepted that not every game of D&D has to be the perfect idea of my campaign world. I would much rather be playing "Conan" than "Harry Potter goes to Waterdeep". But to steal a phrase from the fishing community: "The worst day playing D&D is still better than the best day working"

I can still have fun even if the kids want to play purple haired minotaurs or a bird person from the closest prison in the campaign world. Sometimes I laugh and think about the silly crap I would have thrown on the table at that age. But I don't take it home with me.

Quote from: Brad;1067852That's because human fighters are the best race/class combination in D&D. Always have been, always will be.

3e/3.5e says hi! It took Tome of Battle near the end of the run to fix the fighter (i.e. the warblade class) into anything other than a joke.

QuoteSo now "gatekeeping" is complaining about a bunch of kids on an Internet messageboard? Dude, get a grip.

Except this is an ongoing trend with Pundit declaring entire playstyles wrong/illegitimate/not real roleplaying. One gets the impression sometimes that Pundit's real beef with the SJW crew is that they're the ones in charge of the gatekeeping and not him because he'd gatekeep just as much based on his ideas of what is "true roleplaying".

He alienates a lot of people he doesn't have to because of continual jabs at anyone not playing a human-only (1e races if you HAVE to) sandbox in the standard of AD&D or B/X is doing it wrong and unknowingly playing into the hands of the SIWs (i.e. "they taught you wrong on purpose" implying sinister intent to anyone who plays differently than him).

I appreciate his commitment to free speech, but he's his own worst enemy sometimes and I know from PMs he's driven off more than a few people who would otherwise be good fits (i.e. care about gaming and not politics) with his absolutism.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1067827Or you can use stuff like Game of Thrones to encourage newbs to see the virtues of a human-only campaign.

I thought the goal was to get them to want to play...