Every time I try to look into D&D 5e I realize tieflings and dragonborn are core races now and I start to lose interest...

That is one autistic looking half-orc.

Half-Orcs were a half assed concession because Gygax didn't want Orc adventures. Despite letting a guy play a full on vampire at one point.

Anyway, I honestly prefer genuinely weird and unique shit as playable races vs Human+a bunch of boring offshoots.
My question is, why SHOULDN'T tieflings be a core race? They're individuals with demonic heritage. They can crop up wherever other beings that reproduce do.

What make something "worthy" of being a "core", and what disqualifies them from being a core race.

Is it just showing up in Lord of the Rings?

I would imagine a lot of them ARE rape babies depending on the setting.

Though there are some barbarian tribes that interbreed with nearby orc tribes and so on and so forth.

Still if you're in the mainland there was probably a whole lotta rapin goin on.

I would say, personally, that its not worthy of being a core race if it isn't common.

CORE implies that theres a degree of normality to that race. If a DM wants to allow players to play a god damn mind flayer they can. But Mind flayers aren't common enough that most normal swineherds were going to see one in their lifetime.

I think its being common in the workd and a degree of freedom in alignment.

There can't be that much demon on mortal sex for them to be a double digit minority in a normal city.

>There can't be that much demon on mortal sex for them to be a double digit minority in a normal city.
There doen't need to be. You just need ONE ancestor with a demonic connection(not even sexual, the descendants of a crusading paladin who fought the Abyss could sire tieflings, shit's like magical Agent Orange).

This is before 4e turned them into an entire nation of guys who danced with the devil. I'm not fresh on what 5e tieflings are.
>CORE implies that theres a degree of normality to that race
I always thought it had to do with the idea of them being in a CORE book. Which is where the basic rules for things are.

>I honestly prefer genuinely weird and unique shit as playable races vs Human+a bunch of boring offshoots.

Special snowflakes are boring.

This. If the only way you can make a character interesting is by doings something superficial like slapping a pair of horns on him then you're doing it wrong.

If you aren't going to play a human, why not go whole hog?

I prefer human only fantasy settings or something "exotic".

And what makes a tiefling or dragonborn any more special snowflakey than an elf or gnome aside from you being conditioned into thinking the later two are "normal"?

Are you a special snowflake because your not Chinese, or whatever the most numerous race is in your area?

>This. If the only way you can make a character interesting is by doings something superficial like slapping a pair of horns on him then you're doing it wrong
Why are we assuming that this is the only characterization your going to get.

Almost all of the other "core" races have just as much snowflake potential. I don't see how saying "yeah your guy can have horns now and probably got bullied" is any worse than saying "yeah your guy is part of a magically gifted, nigh immortal and eternally young, race of forest dwellers."

I've played all the races on the core rulebook with all the core classes by 3.5

My favorite character is still my liche I got to use only one session.

Maybe all the other players remember more fondly my human fighter who wanted to be a paladin or my elf ranger that could clip a butterfly's wings with an arrow. But I'll be damned if my liche wasn't such a fun idea to play.

Making something interesting doesn't equal to fun to play.

>If the only way you can make a character interesting is by doings something superficial like slapping a pair of horns on him then you're doing it wrong
That more or less sums it up.

That lack of creativity is also why you some have people claiming that having characters do things like ride horses, wear armor, or be humans makes them 'all the same'. To some people, those cosmetic differences are all they think about.

One of my favorite fantasy settings was the original Guild Wars because humans were the only playable race. It was great.

Elves are very close, I'll accept them. Shortstacks are annoying. Half-orcs are a race for power gamers.

I've probably been playing longer than you and I think you're a faggot. D&D does not have to conform to you little faggot idea of what D&D should be. You are the kind of gamer that would be the death of games if he had a following. And I don't even like 5e, mind you.

So much this. The retarded shit I've had my players bring to the table sometimes.

I had one player bring a grippli paladin to the table who's mount was a fucking hippo. I wish I were joking.

Like how the fuck are you supposed to have a frogman go into a town on the back of a hippo without causing a stir? I don't want every single session to devolve into 'What are ye wee frog man?"

But seriously... are people supposed to just be ok with it?

Sorry there are people that like things that aren't retarded.

What edition are you talking about Humans have been the best race in D&D for a while.

Half-Orcs range from mediocre to good. Hardly power gamey. Elves and Half-Elves range from good to power gamey.

Aasimer are cheese 99.9% of the the time.

>Is it just showing up in Lord of the Rings?
Pretty much, yeah. You can't underestimate how autistic people are about Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, I guess they are, aren't they. I played more pen and paper D&D during the 3e era where humans were very good. But these days I mostly just replay Baldur's Gate, where the half-orc is a strictly better fighter.

>But seriously... are people supposed to just be ok with it?
If you let them play the race have it be a somewhat common occurrence. And just because something is "new" doesn't make it a show stopper. Word spreads and people live for a long time.

"Oh you're one of the Grippli fellas. Just had a caravan of you're kin pass through a month ago. Caught one of the little bastards staring saucy at my daughter."

It's jarring because you wrote your setting to be bland milqtoast bullshit. He came from somewhere? Think about how that somewhere has interacted with the world and vice versa.
Aren't you part of the problem by assuming all the player wants is the cosmetic differences.

Shit all of the core races are basically humans with odd cosmetic differences?.

And, elves are strictly better wizards and dwarves are strictly better clerics. It's like some races were made to fit into certain roles.

When the role is melee combat everyone loses there shit and screams power gamer for some reason.

I agree. Lord of the Rings would have been so much better if Frodo's gardener had been kermit the frog.

Then why are you playing a wandering knight as opposed to a farmer?

The problem is never in liking things. The problem is disliking things for the only reason that they are different from the first thing you liked.
This is supposed to be a creative hobby. If your first reaction to a bit of lore is 'that's retarded because of reasons' you are probably not fit for the hobby.

>where the half-orc is a strictly better fighter.
And fighters are strictly inferior to basically everything.

On the other hand, I'm expecting creativity from a 3.5 kid. A foolish proposition, I realize.

No one who claims to like D&D, any edition, can say they like things that aren't retarded. Being a complete clusterfuck of weird shit is why that game is fun.

>scalie detected

people who costantly hate on everything and won't let people have fucking fun are broing.
And this is said nby someone who always picked the boring Human choice.

Every core race other than human has the potential to be a crappy special snowflake if the character doesnt go any further than "I'm an X".

Elves, Dwarves, Halflings and Gnomes can be just as 'unique outsider with special powers' as Dragonborn.

Half-Orcs, Half-Elves and Drow can be just as 'tragic backstory misunderstood outsider' as Tiefling.

The only core race I have an issue with is the Dragonborn, and that's because they were literally shoved into the Forgotten Realms setting in 4e and don't feel like they belong because of it. But that doesn't change that a decent player will make a decent character with one.

5e did a lot of "let's just pretend that never happened" in regards to 4e lore. Tieflings are back to being 'You had a great great great grandfather who had some kind of contact with a fiend that you never knew about? Surprise mutant baby!'.

I doubt it. I'd guess
Dragonborn are basically lizardmen, and lizardmen are really gay.

>lizardmen are gay
You're gay.

i just want halflings/gnomes to leave

they're literally meme races that don't even have especially distinct differences from eachother, let alone other humanoid races.

I'm not asking for full on furries as core, but some goblins or some of the less reclusive fey creatures would work way better

>i just want halflings/gnomes to leave
Seriously this? Why not just make the comfy/hippy dwarves,

Why are elves the only fantasy race to get a shit ton of variations?
>wild elf
>high elf
>normal elf
>drow
>sea elf

yeah fuck
>Sun elf
>Moon elf
>Dusk elf
>Desert elf
>Snow elf

>Aren't you part of the problem by assuming all the player wants is the cosmetic differences.
I've spent years playing with these people and looking for explanations. That's the one that makes the most sense to me.

People who claim that rarely seem to be looking for roleplay possibilities that don't happen with humans (which are pretty few and far between considering the breadth of human interaction). They tend to pounce on GMs who make NPCs have any difference in reaction aside from praise and unconcealed wonder, and everyone quickly gets tired of having every NPC stand in total awe.

And then you get people who think that having PCs use similar equipment (armor, mounts, helmets, weapon choices) deprives them of originality and makes uniqueness impossible, even though that is quite obviously not the case to anyone who has ever watched a war movie or even a historical fiction show. The only explanation I have found is that these people, at least at the time they make such complaints, are simply not considering the things typically associated with character depth like strengths, weaknesses, conflicts, quirks, and motivations.

> Lord of the Rings would have been so much better if Frodo's gardener had been kermit the frog.
Sesame Street LotR reboot when?

Personally I prefer elves to be NPC's or even outright semi mythical in settings.

Otherwise they get watered down. And I like having 'hill dwarves' or whatever instead of gnomes.

>Personally I prefer elves to be NPC's or even outright semi mythical in settings.
>Otherwise they get watered down.

This. I like my elves to be one step away from fairy monsters, not "humans with pointy ears who are sometimes dicks to people".

why is it so hard to think of a dwarf concept that isn't a hunter, a miner/craftsman, a cleric/paladin, and/or a drunk?

What else do they do?

I don't know, but I'm going to have to call everyone here into question.

I can understand complaints if more of you mentioned how a PC and the player were being jerks,

but a lot of you are just complaining that the option is there. Do any of you actually game?

>>mystara aka becmi dnd setting had fucking radiation magic, time travel and ray guns as part of the setting
>op is a dnd 3e baby who thinks dnd is for serious business only

Gonzo motherfucker ever heard of it?

It's not the fact that there's an option, it's that core races are held up as the most 'standard' races, which in turn lends perceived legitimacy to them, and players and GMs alike assume those races are common.

So you end up with streets and adventuring parties full of dragon men, elves from the underdark, and infernally-warped humanoids, as if any of those things aren't supposed to be more on the uncommon side.

>Otherwise they get watered down.
Guess LotR was already watering down elves huh

The book says they are uncommon.

At the same time, don't you set your games in larger, metropolitan cities? It's a better justification for why such weird PCs get together.

It's almost like the game is highly customization and meant for GMs to assume what is and isn't common in their world.

I find the idea of a "core" race should be one that other core races interact with. Tieflings, Dragonborn, hell, even Half-Orcs are rare enough that I don't think they should be a core background race.

The only reason I'd even consider giving Half-Elves a pass is because Humans and Elves get along well enough in most settings that the idea of them producing offspring, while not common, wouldn't be all THAT rare compared to Half-Orcs, which are basically either rape-offspring or the byproduct of the strangest Romeo and Juliet love story ever told.

I'm fine with the races in settings where it makes sense. Tieflings in a setting where demonic interaction is flat-out common would make sense. Dragonborne make sense in a world where Dragons involve themselves enough in actual wars that making a slave-race of cannonfodder (relative to actual dragons) would make sense.

However, you have to tweak the setting for that. For Half-Orcs to exist as a common enough race to be a background, Orcs must have splintered into two groups, the Fuck Humans group and the "Fuck" Humans group which gets along great with the tiny, pale or dark bastards and is a regular ally.

You can't spawn an entire race with hatefucking.

They aren't an entire race, there the result of a union. That's like saying you shouldn't be able to play a mulatto or something in a game taking place on earth.

You're playing a game full of uncommon scenarios. D&D is about adventure and dungeon crawling not farming and training to be a squire just to fall off your horse and die of a concussion.

>if it's not core I can't play it ever

Blame your DM.

Lizardmen are fucking awesome. I hate dragonborn mainly because I like lizardmen. Dragonborn are just "I'm a lizardmen except better in every, and I have a breath attack, and I'm a PC race because I have dragon on my name instead of lizard".

Try playing a game with less race choices.

Hell, 5e released a free Onnestrad planescape splat that gives human the options to play like an elf.

>half orcs introduced in 2nd Ed.

Fucking pleb

You guys do know there's a line between common and unicorn right?

Just because you don't see something everyday or every year doesn't mean it's existence is an oddity.

>lizardmen are really gay

All dwarf players are literal homos

I always write them I'm settings as bankers and prize animal breeders. They make the finest animals through generation after generation of stubbornly pursuing a specific end goal with that animal.

Banking is just logical to me. They already did up the precious metals and gems. They also have extensive record keeping for the family histories. Why wouldn't they start minting currency and keeping track of debts?

Except nobody ever fucking does. GMs always just go 'yeah core races' since it's easiest. If they have more experience, then it's core + some other supplement, but I've been in maybe one game ever where any of the core races were not all present or even considered less common in the setting, even to the point where it clashed with established setting lore

I let players play unusual races all the time, I just require them to justify it with a decent backstory if it clashes with the campaign setting.

If they want to be a Half-Orc in a setting where Orcs and Humans are at war, I want a better fucking explanation for it than "Half-Orcs are cool," and even if I allow it I'm going to tell them that straight-up their decision to play a character of that race WILL bite them in the ass at times.

Part of being a good DM, even in D&D, is about worldbuilding. If they're playing in a world where Orcs hate Humans and Humans hate Orcs, the Half-Orc is going to be a man or woman who can't really find much peace on either side.

If the fluff makes it a core part of the setting, cool. If it doesn't explain it and offers it up as an option and it doesn't really make much sense within the context of the setting, damn right I'll exercise my right to throw a ban on the race unless the player's really willing to fight for it.

This. If a 2bie gets upset over half-orcs ruining the integrity of his game, it's not because he's old school, it's because he's middle school.

I've been playing since the early 80s and I don't have an issue with tieflings. I really fucking hate dragonborn though.

Lizardmen kick ass. Dragonborn are fucking gay (and not in an awesome, Freddie Mercury way).

>spot the retard

I've always enjoyed allowing goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs as a playable race in my games and common sights in human cities. I used half-orc stats for orcs, though, because fuck that LA +1 shit.

>samefagging this hard
>hating on hobbits
>judging the races solely on height
Halflings (totally not hobbits guys) are ideally homebodies who just happen to sneak well. They're also older than you, dipshit. Their racial profile was well-defined in the same book that Goblin was a name for an Orc. Have some respect for good writing.

Gnomes on the other hand should be the adventurous, inventive race that piss off the halflings to no end. That said, removing them is totally valid.

Maybe read fantasy books that aren't 3.PF. For all the cool stuff in that style, they really tanked on the short races in my opinion.

Melee is MAD so a races that are specifically "built" for that tend to have multiple ability score bonuses which may come off as overpowered compared to other races. Casters are usually SAD, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to have a race with +2 int or wis. It's also not impossible at all to build a functioning caster without a bonus to their main ability score or even with a penalty.
Another reason for people to dislike races made for melee is the commonly held belief that humans should be the best race or at least nearly the best for any role, so introducing a race obviously superior to them in something is seen as going against something so fundamental that it's just plain heresy.

So sick of the Drizzt complaints. He was actually a decent character, and he kinda acts how elves are classically portrayed, some of his books actually had him coming to terms with being an elf in a human dominated world.

Stop bitching about core races, book even says to take them out if you don't want them. Why is it that older edition player whine so much?

>Broken as fuck
Wat?
The games probably the most balanced edition, outside of 4e and it didn't even have to turn into a wargame to do it.

Drizzt was basically an elf nigger trying to be white. He was the michael jackson of elves.

He's the epitomy of a special snowflake. "I'm just like normal elves, I'm good but everyone around me is evil cuz they're black."

They even smell bad.

Dude. Theres shield dwarves, gold dwarves, duergar. Rock gnomes, deep gnomes, ghostwise halflings, orogs, genasi. All kinds of non elf subraces.

Shit you can even consider aasimar and tieflings human subraces.

I agree with some parts but it's really easy to work around. Why are you crying.

What tieflings and dragonborn are cool.

I think a better way to say it would be that not everything is good for every setting. Tieflings and dragonborn probably aren't good for a basic kind of setting.

Some people like kitchen sink fantasy settings, some people like them more rooted and focused. We're all sitting around pretending to be dwarves and shit. No reason to argue about it.

after playing dragonborn for nearly a year I gave up and forcibly killed my character off and apologized to my party, explaining that I would never want to play that character again and dragonborn should be added to the ban list along with tieflings and gnomes

the shame will haunt me forever

>Every time I try to look into D&D 5e I realize tieflings and dragonborn are core races now and I start to lose interest.
They were Core last edition too.

We don't mention 4e around these parts.

Do you really think there's no barbarian/evil humans in most settings?

You spoony bard

But they had a role in the history.

Dragonborn and Tieflings weren't uncommon in POLand and they had justifiable reasons for existing.

Unlike Forgotten Realms, which should of stayed dead with TSR.

Anything with that many fans is never gonna stay dead as long as it's basically a license to print money...pun not intended.

It never should have been the base setting for 5e though, that's just a clusterfuck.

Sun elves and moon elves are just FR names for high elves and grey elves (I forget which is which). Desert elf and snow elf were introduced in books that generally provided new subraces for most of the core races, subraces which were intended to be used in campaigns that featured a certain environment heavily and which in practice were usually only used if they were good for a powergamer build. I've never even heard of a dusk elf.

Elves have no less than six distinct subraces, which is three times what the average race gets, and that is ridiculous, but don't blow the issue out of proportion.

I was under the impression Tieflings, gnomes, dark elves, half elves, and half orcs were all "talk to your DM about the setting and tone" options. Theyre statted, but all but the dark elf are after a passage about the races being non-present in all settings and being rare in the ones that they are in.

The 5e book splits the core races into common and uncommon. Anyone who thinks dragonborn, gnomes, tieflings, half-elves, or half-orcs are common hasn't actually read the PHB.

You're undercutting your own argument. If we're pushing the handling of races wholly onto the GM and don't care what kind of preconceptions they get about a race from it being core or not, then it doesn't make any difference at all where exactly a race appears, except in that being in the core release makes it easier to reference and also means that people can play that race out the gate without having to homebrew anything - which brings us to the reason that actual sane people make races core, which has nothing to do with population density and everything to do with popularity amongst players. If a race is popular, lots of GMs will need to homebrew it, so it is a convenience to stat it up in advance for the same reason it's a convenience to have stats for any race at all.

I pretty much welcome all races into my fantasy games, unless I have a specific story-related reason not to ("Sorry, you can't play a dwarf, because this is a story about finding out why they vanished"). My way of handling players who bring in "weird" races is to have most NPCs simply not react. Everything is common-place. But then, I kind of enjoy taking the wind out of the special snowflakes' sails.

When the bulk of what came before was "hang on to your kidneys and children", then yes, absolutely.

I suppose that would cut down on the 'I'm special because I'm an evil elf but I'm actually good' types.

definitive List of Acceptable Player Races:

-Human

You... I like you.

I legitimately do not understand the grievances with dragonborn. They are just dragony people. Why the fuck do people get their panties twisted over them? The only reason they're not lizardfolk is because lizardfolk remain the prehistoric brute race from legacy D&D. So they're elegant lizardfolk.

Also: You know, it's Dungeons and DRAGONS. Dragons kinda tend to be a thing.

The fantastical elements of a setting should exist along it's liminal zones, so that the setting seems relatable to players existing in the real-world, and imparts a sense of verisimilitude and "heading into the unknown," but also so that the actual fantastical elements are truly interesting. When you have MAGIC EVERYWHERE, it becomes stupid and meaningless.

If you like Dragonborn, you are an idiot.

>But seriously... are people supposed to just be ok with it?

...Yes?

It's fantasy, there's a whole village of frog people like a 20 minute walk from here.

If playing a frog makes the player happy, it's your job as a DM to justify it.

But Elves, fey walking among mortals, are fun?