Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[Xervous]

But I guess it stands to reason that someday we might see Dragonborn as humans with wings. Tiefling are already just edgy goth emo humans.

- M

Due to a lack of any substantial background details (lore, iconic presentations) dragonborn come across as humans in a wish,com dragon suit. It’s appropriate to lump them in with “we have devils at home” tieflings.

[JusticeZero]

My general view is that worldbuilders should:

1. Use only a few classes and races
2. Lavish attention and details on the races/classes that are included, rather than including a large number of flavorless entries
3. Neither favor nor reject "Classic" races and classes out of the sake of familiarity

If you can't be bothered to make your dwarves flavorful, maybe the detailed and rich culture of the ratkin that are next door should occupy that space. And vice versa. Richness beats raw quantity every time in my experience.

[Witty Username]

My general view is that worldbuilders should:

1. Use only a few classes and races
2. Lavish attention and details on the races/classes that are included, rather than including a large number of flavorless entries
3. Neither favor nor reject "Classic" races and classes out of the sake of familiarity

If you can't be bothered to make your dwarves flavorful, maybe the detailed and rich culture of the ratkin that are next door should occupy that space. And vice versa. Richness beats raw quantity every time in my experience.

I don't disagree, I just find it odd to be an argument against dwarves and for say dragonborn.
Alot of the newer (or reimagined) species tend to lack 'personality'.

A cursory comparison between tieflings and gnolls demonstrates this a bit. Gnolls actually grip with the idea of a fiendblooded creature, where tiefling is mostly cosmetics.

Not to say they cannot be used well, it just takes some effort to put a 'there' there.

[Dr.Samurai]

I don't disagree, I just find it odd to be an argument against dwarves and for say dragonborn.
Alot of the newer (or reimagined) species tend to lack 'personality'.

A cursory comparison between tieflings and gnolls demonstrates this a bit. Gnolls actually grip with the idea of a fiendblooded creature, where tiefling is mostly cosmetics.

Not to say they cannot be used well, it just takes some effort to put a 'there' there.

I agree. Dragonborn and tieflings smack of “we don’t know what we want them to be, we just know we need things that look like dragons and devils…”

[Errorname]

I don't disagree, I just find it odd to be an argument against dwarves and for say dragonborn.
Alot of the newer (or reimagined) species tend to lack 'personality'.

I think this is mostly a result of modern D&D just being kind of lazy with the worldbuilding and just letting players patch the gaps with their own imaginings

[awa]

I feel tieflings have a nice niche as that weird thing that pops up inside human settlements that are interacting with demons to much. When most of them are evil the good and neutral ones get to angst about it and that's good fun. They have far less of a point when they are just perfectly normal dudes who are just kinda there looking like demons but every one is okay with it.

[Errorname]

I feel tieflings have a nice niche as that weird thing that pops up inside human settlements that are interacting with demons to much. When most of them are evil the good and neutral ones get to angst about it and that's good fun. They have far less of a point when they are just perfectly normal dudes who are just kinda there looking like demons but every one is okay with it.

Eh, there's already a lot of "mostly evil" options players can pick from, and Tieflings as mostly normal people who are ostracized because of a magical mutation is at least a unique niche.

[Witty Username]

I have a number of minor gripes with tieflings, I actually like the idea, although I preferred the 3.5 way that it was a template so you could be a non-human tiefling.

For ostracized groups, I personally prefer Orc, Drow and Kobold depending on the specific vibe. Tieflings have the issue that they have the least charged conflict, which tends to such feeling forced. Or we end up with a Far Beyond the Stars problem where the fantasy is too thin for people to have a comfort buffer.

Astectics is another although that is more a 4e complaint. The default look isn't bad but prior edition were much weirder (anywhere from indistinguishable from humans save for a smell of brimstone to having bird talons instead of hands). SCAG delivers most of what I want here so this is probably my smallest gripe.

And then the Fiendish aspect which I already brought up. Which I do have some immersion problems, but it is also sorta boring. Assimar is a counter example, there is literally an angel living in your head as an expectation and affects to temperment and personality associated. An Evil Assimar is weird, inherently offputting, and has physical consequences if the coruption subrace is to be taken at face value.

But these are again minor, my personal solution is I like playing up the fiendish aspects. Leaning a little more evil than I would otherwise play the character, feel otherworldly and offputing, etc.

[icefractal]

It's weird that Tieflings are sometimes regarded as a "kids these days" kind of thing when they go so far back. And I don't just mean 2E Planescape, I mean pre-Tolkein: Merlin of the 12th century King Arthur stories. Plus, like, a crap-ton of other fiction.

IMO, if we're talking about fantasy in general (not LotR only, and not D&D-derived stuff), Tieflings are in the top tier of iconic stuff, along with Elves and Goblins, and above Orcs, Dwarves, Halflings, etc.

[Errorname]

I think the claim to continuity with Merlin is sort of dubious. They're building on ancient archetypes, but the Tiefling as D&D conceives it isn't really a match for it's folkloric ancestors. Regardless, I think the reason people perceive Tieflings as latecomers is because they got a massive boost from 4e and have become much more prominent since.

[Xervous]

It's weird that Tieflings are sometimes regarded as a "kids these days" kind of thing when they go so far back. And I don't just mean 2E Planescape, I mean pre-Tolkein: Merlin of the 12th century King Arthur stories. Plus, like, a crap-ton of other fiction.

IMO, if we're talking about fantasy in general (not LotR only, and not D&D-derived stuff), Tieflings are in the top tier of iconic stuff, along with Elves and Goblins, and above Orcs, Dwarves, Halflings, etc.

It’s not every manner of tiefling, it’s the vibrant skinned, horned and tailed devilish flanderization plus adjacent interpretations that hold prominence. Merlin didn’t have a complexion best likened to red velvet.

[MonochromeTiger]

It’s not every manner of tiefling, it’s the vibrant skinned, horned and tailed devilish flanderization plus adjacent interpretations that hold prominence. Merlin didn’t have a complexion best likened to red velvet.

To be fair there is a bit of a connection. Mostly that both were changed because somebody had no idea what to do with the original concept.

Merlin wasn't a "Tiefling" in the stories until writers started moving away from him being a druid or druids having any kind of power at all and needed another reason to say he could do magic, so instead "oh he's the son of a demon, it's fine guys demons do magic all the time and this makes him more sinister so we can justify bad things happening to him when he's just doing his job for a bunch of people who probably hate him."

Modern Tieflings have a similar point, going from "they can be a bit of anything, not all of them share the same features" to the current red-purple goat horned one-appearance-fits-all Tieflings. And the same point ends up going back to Kobolds, there's a basis and long history for Kobolds not being little lizards playing at being Dragons but because someone decided to play around with the image cause they wanted something specific out of it suddenly Kobolds as reptiles stuck and the little yap-dog Kobolds are vanishingly rare in comparison.

[Kardwill]

Another factor is that camera layouts and animations obviously prioritize average height PCs over short PCs.

Yeah, talking to the NPCs' crotch during all the cutscenes can get tedious. Integrating a very small (or very tall) character in a game's visuals is a lot of work, and the result can be jarring.

The fact that all romance options in BG3 are tallfolk instead of smallfolk might impact it as well. As funny as it is to romance the gnome-hating Astarion on a gnome, I expect most (even if not all) people want someone with slightly less height difference for animation purposes. A smallfolk romance option would, I expect, see a boost in smallfolk numbers in the game.
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Helia

I may still be a little salty that my dwarfette rogue in DA:O could romance the prettyboy assassin elven jerk NPC or the human knight NPC, but not the funny dwarf fighter NPC.

I think "no humans" works better in sci-fi. Dwarves and elves (and haflings and gnomes) are a bit too close to humans to make the omission that meaningful, so unless you remove all them too it likely won't make as big a difference as you initially imagine it would.

Talislanta, the game "without humans nor elves", but with a metric ton of not-elves and not-humans with diverse ear-shapes and funky skin colors. ^^
(And some really alien options, sure, like "sentient snail". But mostly not-humans and not-elves)

And I agree that to me, elves, dwarves and hobbits feel more like human variants than real nonhumans. Some alien stuff that we can play with, sure (like the lifespan of the elves, or the different sizes), but mostly, as groups, they feel mostly like human archetypes/cultures (to the point that using a certain real world accent for them "just feels right")

[Witty Username]

It's weird that Tieflings are sometimes regarded as a "kids these days" kind of thing when they go so far back. And I don't just mean 2E Planescape, I mean pre-Tolkein: Merlin of the 12th century King Arthur stories. Plus, like, a crap-ton of other fiction.

Tieflings go far back, there 4e iconic look replacing everything else the could be, less so.

[Mordar]

It's weird that Tieflings are sometimes regarded as a "kids these days" kind of thing when they go so far back. And I don't just mean 2E Planescape, I mean pre-Tolkein: Merlin of the 12th century King Arthur stories. Plus, like, a crap-ton of other fiction.

IMO, if we're talking about fantasy in general (not LotR only, and not D&D-derived stuff), Tieflings are in the top tier of iconic stuff, along with Elves and Goblins, and above Orcs, Dwarves, Halflings, etc.

I strongly disagree with the exclusion of dwarves from the ancient list. Dwarves as round drunk master smith cleric/fighters, yes. Dwarves go with little elves and goblins and all sorts of fae folk, and iirc, even more prominently in some colder places.

So maybe the truth of why dwarves aren't cool anymore is because they moved South from the snow and ice clad lands?

- M

[OldTrees1]

I have a number of minor gripes with tieflings, I actually like the idea, although I preferred the 3.5 way that it was a template so you could be a non-human tiefling.

3.5E Tiefling (and even 3E IIRC) were not technically templates although fiendish was.
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/planetouched.htm
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/...shCreature.htm

However I agree that Tiefling would be good as a template. Or at least flavored as not necessarily human (to be fair, I had forgotten and was ignoring that restriction).

[Jophiel]

Merlin doesn't resonate with me as "tiefling" because old stories like that are about one-offs who are "devil touched" and the like. There's no sense of culture or world building from that leading to entire communities of brightly-colored sexy horned people. If I was world building and wanted something like a Merlin, I'd either apply a template over "human" or just add in his lineage as part of a warlock/sorcerer style class.

[Errorname]

I strongly disagree with the exclusion of dwarves from the ancient list. Dwarves as round drunk master smith cleric/fighters, yes. Dwarves go with little elves and goblins and all sorts of fae folk, and iirc, even more prominently in some colder places.

Yeah, the Dwarves in the Eddas are pretty recognizable as the progenitor of their fantasy counterparts, they're probably more fully formed than Elves were honestly.

[awa]

Merlin doesn't resonate with me as "tiefling" because old stories like that are about one-offs who are "devil touched" and the like. There's no sense of culture or world building from that leading to entire communities of brightly-colored sexy horned people. If I was world building and wanted something like a Merlin, I'd either apply a template over "human" or just add in his lineage as part of a warlock/sorcerer style class.

I agree, I feel like if tieflings are common that should be saying something about the setting, was their a demonic invasion recently? Are they associated with an evil demon worshiping empire? Are their a lot of secret cults around?

I like tieflings as a concept dont get me wrong I just dont like them as generic humanoids, I think it takes away from both them and the fiends.

[Witty Username]

3.5E Tiefling (and even 3E IIRC) were not technically templates although fiendish was.
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/planetouched.htm
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/...shCreature.htm

However I agree that Tiefling would be good as a template. Or at least flavored as not necessarily human (to be fair, I had forgotten and was ignoring that restriction).

Oh, damm, I forgot that was a houserule.

I think One halves is at least something so the idea is there at least.

[Errorname]

Honestly all of the Planetouched should probably be templates.

[SerTabris]

Honestly all of the Planetouched should probably be templates.

This is basically how Pathfinder 2E seems to do it, and I think it's a good idea.

I may still be a little salty that my dwarfette rogue in DA:O could romance the prettyboy assassin elven jerk NPC or the human knight NPC, but not the funny dwarf fighter NPC.

Interesting; that is not the particular example I ever expect to see when talking about romancing dwarves in Dragon Age. If Awakening had romances I'd definitely be pulling for Sigrun though.

[Aquillion]

Tieflings were in 2e, in the planeswalkers handbook. (Planescape: Torment, which used 2e rules, even had a tiefling as a party member.)

But there was a pretty clear list of "default" fantasy player races in 2e and 3e, which appeared in the core book and tended to show up in a variety of related fantasy things; saying "outside of Tolkien" is sort of burying the lead, because the default concept of the D&D party is definitely heavily based on Tolkien. The sense that tieflings came from nowhere is pretty reasonable.

And pretty much everything about D&D tieflings is new and unique. There are mythological characters described as having demonic ancestry (well, one character, honestly, and only in some versions) but the appearance, culture, and other details of tieflings were pretty much made up whole-cloth for D&D.

Also the word itself was made up for D&D, I think? That's a pretty big thing in terms of how "legitimate" people feel they are. If someone unfamiliar with D&D hears that they have the option to play a dwarf, they're immediately going to picture more or less D&D dwarves. If they hear the option to play a tiefling, they won't.

I also agree that the idea that tieflings have more mythological basis than dwarves is comically absurd. Dwarves have appeared in mythology almost unchanged for a long long time, whereas "tiefling" is a made-up word that has no real relation to anything in mythology outside of the occasional vague mention of the extremely broad concept of demonic blood. It's like saying that Lolth has mythological basis because there were spider-deities in the past - probably, but the similarities mostly end there.

Truthfully I would say that D&D dwarves are probably the core player race, aside from humans, with the most mythological basis - they are closer to their mythological counterparts than elves are. While the word elf was used prior to Tolkien, most of the details of D&D elves are based on Tolkien's writings and little else. Whereas, as someone mentioned above, D&D dwarves could wander into the setting of the Eddas and nobody would be surprised or confused to see them at all.

[Jophiel]

Truthfully I would say that D&D dwarves are probably the core player race, aside from humans, with the most mythological basis - they are closer to their mythological counterparts than elves are. While the word elf was used prior to Tolkien, most of the details of D&D elves are based on Tolkien's writings and little else.

If you said "Dwarf" to someone 40 years ago, they'd think of a pretty typical dwarf. Even Snow White's buddies were fairly dwarfy.

If you said "Elf" to the average person 40 years ago, they'd most likely be thinking of shoes, toys or cookies. Slender high-cheeked archers wasn't really a thing in the public consciousness.

[Xihirli]

Also the word itself was made up for D&D, I think?

Ehh? Tiefl is just German for "devil." Presumably anyone who spoke German would say that or something similar to anyone they were accusing of being devil-spawned.

[Boci]

Ehh? Tiefl is just German for "devil." Presumably anyone who spoke German would say that or something similar to anyone they were accusing of being devil-spawned.

Google says its "Teufel", not "tiefl", so barring some alternate spelling, the link is there, but they are sperate words.

[OldTrees1]

Oh, damm, I forgot that was a houserule.

I think One halves is at least something so the idea is there at least.

That is a good houserule.
Dragonborn was secretly template in 3E. As was Hellbred.

[Psyren]

I see Dwarves are so boring that we've yet again crossed into discussing a different species

Regarding Tieflings, I'm not against the idea that they're constantly grappling with some dark or fiendish impulse in their blood, but I'm glad that is something the DM and player can decide they want to play up, while the ones who'd rather not deal with that can simply choose not to. I'm not big on forcing players and their DMs into spotlight-stealing minigames.

I think "no humans" works better in sci-fi. Dwarves and elves (and haflings and gnomes) are a bit too close to humans to make the omission that meaningful, so unless you remove all them too it likely won't make as big a difference as you initially imagine it would.

I'd argue having humans around is even more important in sci-fi. With fantasy, even if you leave the humans out, people can look at elves and dwarves and have a rough idea of what they're getting; but if instead they're dealing with less familiar races like Krogans or Protoss or Twi'leks or Skrulls or Chozo etc then I believe having that frame of reference is vital.

My general view is that worldbuilders should:

1. Use only a few classes and races
2. Lavish attention and details on the races/classes that are included, rather than including a large number of flavorless entries
3. Neither favor nor reject "Classic" races and classes out of the sake of familiarity

If you can't be bothered to make your dwarves flavorful, maybe the detailed and rich culture of the ratkin that are next door should occupy that space. And vice versa. Richness beats raw quantity every time in my experience.

I agree with your third bullet, but you don't have to build your entire world at once; you can start with a few classes and races and then flesh out the world to include more of both later, adding both depth and breadth as you go. Greyhawk wasn't built in a day.

[Boci]

I'd argue having humans around is even more important in sci-fi. With fantasy, even if you leave the humans out, people can look at elves and dwarves and have a rough idea of what they're getting; but if instead they're dealing with less familiar races like Krogans or Protoss or Twi'leks or Skrulls or Chozo etc then I believe having that frame of reference is vital.

You seem to be agreeing without realizing it. I said "no humans works better in sci-fi" because of those races you mentioned being less familiarity. "No humans", assuming its not a cheap gimmick, is intentionally making the setting unfamilair. There's little point in doing that, only to have elves and dwarves in there.

[Psyren]

You seem to be agreeing without realizing it. I said "no humans works better in sci-fi" because of those races you mentioned being less familiarity. "No humans", assuming its not a cheap gimmick, is intentionally making the setting unfamilair. There's little point in doing that, only to have elves and dwarves in there.

What I'm saying is that "less familiarity" means you want humans there even more to keep the setting relatable to newcomers (and thus more commercially viable.)