Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[Xervous]

I mean, D&D stood for Dungeons & Drow for what seems to have been some 15 to 20 years.

And perhaps, with tieflings and dragonborns in the Player's Handbook, drow aren't sufficiently unique, special, and edgy anymore...?

So there’s three cosplayers, one as a tiefling, one as a drow, one as a Dragonborn. Which one makes Twitter explode?

[Mordar]

I mean, D&D stood for Dungeons & Drow for what seems to have been some 15 to 20 years.

And perhaps, with tieflings and dragonborns in the Player's Handbook, drow aren't sufficiently unique, special, and edgy anymore...?

Plus, you know...those were Boomer Edgy. Then they became the institutional icon, and in order to be edgy you also have to be iconoclastic...

So there’s three cosplayers, one as a tiefling, one as a drow, one as a Dragonborn. Which one makes Twitter explode?

Obviously the Dragonborn. Because it had a little blue bird puppet. And fire. (Can imagine less entertaining reasons for the Drow, and the Tiefling would have made a stir in the halcyon days of "D&D is the Debil!"...but I like the image of roasting the little blue corporate logo best)

- M

[LibraryOgre]

I mean, D&D stood for Dungeons & Drow for what seems to have been some 15 to 20 years.

And perhaps, with tieflings and dragonborns in the Player's Handbook, drow aren't sufficiently unique, special, and edgy anymore...?

A large part of the drows popularity was Drizzit, but those books were a long time ago (relatively speaking) I dont think we have anything comparable recently.

Sure new books have been made more recently but I dont think they have the same cultural weight the originals did.

Oh, Driz'zt definitely contributed, and it went into the 3e era. I do think tieflings have somewhat slotted into the same spot of "person burdened by heritage and the perceptions of others", though that's also freely jettisoned by others when inconvenient.

[Psyren]

I wonder if untying attributes from race had something to do with it.

Dwarfs were the only way to get a +2 con bonus in 5e but now that everyone can have it, it seems like it's unnessicary. I'm sure if, in BG3, they kept racial bonuses tied to your race we would be seeing more dwarf barbarians.

I mean, even if you're right, I would definitely rather have floating ASIs.
Also, poor Karlach being stuck with ASIs that do zip for Barbarians would be pretty funny.

I mean... drow.

For those who missed the 90s, drow were the go-to race if you wanted an edgy tragic character. Heck, when I was not allowed to play a drow, I played a half-drow. Because you got the edgy backstory of "rejected by my people" and you looked cool and different.

Now? I hardly hear a peep about people playing drow.

Oh totally. And it's not just that they were edgy - Several other races are edgy. But Drow are also sexy. Which I guess goes for Blood Elves too.

I also wonder how much of the BG3 stats are skewed by the origin characters (8/11 are humans, elves, or both).

Even if those figures do include the Origin playthroughs though, IIRC those are a tiny fraction compared to the overwhelming majority of playthroughs being Tav/Durge so it wouldn't be skewed by much.

[threefivearchve]

Dwarves are the first fantasy race I'd include in a setting. They are the only non-human race besides orcs I put into my steampunk setting. I could have left them out, too, but dwarves I felt that I had to include. People don't like playing dwarves as much nowadays, though. They represent a different era of fantasy aesthetic compared to what is popular now. It's more centered around tieflings and dragonborn, as well as "cute" animal races like tortles and harrengon.

That's in 5e at least. In 3.5, my current party includes 3 dwarves. My longest-running character was a dwarf, and my first character ever was a dwarf. They seem to be the most "D&D" D&D race, if that makes sense. What is more iconic for D&D? Half-orcs?

[Psyren]

I think elves and dwarves and hobbits halflings are too generic to be iconic personally.

The species that feels iconic to me, despite how recent it is as an option, is Dragonborn. They're an easy way to get that second D going long before true dragons are appropriate.

[nweismuller]

As far as rigidity of stereotype- in the game I'm currently running, dwarves are surface-dwelling, noted seafarers, and the first race to use wizardry- and still noted for their wizards. They're also neither Scottish, terribly grouchy, or any more drunken than anybody else. They're also generally acknowledged to be recognisably 'dwarves' by my players. So there's definitely room for breaking stereotype.

[OldTrees1]

Even if those figures do include the Origin playthroughs though, IIRC those are a tiny fraction compared to the overwhelming majority of playthroughs being Tav/Durge so it wouldn't be skewed by much.

Are the companions excluded from the stats or does it include any character created by the character creator (such as companions talking to Withers about respecing)? If it includes the companions, then it is a huge skew.

If companions are excluded, and that 7% is skewed by origin character runs, we could multiply Dwarf stats by 1.075. As one of 10+ factors discussed in this thread, it would contribute.

Assuming companions are excluded, correcting the data based on the origin character runs would place Elf as more popular than Human. Otherwise the order does not change from this 1 factor alone.

Dwarves are the first fantasy race I'd include in a setting. They are the only non-human race besides orcs I put into my steampunk setting. I could have left them out, too, but dwarves I felt that I had to include. People don't like playing dwarves as much nowadays, though. They represent a different era of fantasy aesthetic compared to what is popular now. It's more centered around tieflings and dragonborn, as well as "cute" animal races like tortles and harrengon.

That's in 5e at least. In 3.5, my current party includes 3 dwarves. My longest-running character was a dwarf, and my first character ever was a dwarf. They seem to be the most "D&D" D&D race, if that makes sense. What is more iconic for D&D? Half-orcs?

More evidence that there might be a difference between the 5E and 3E Dwarf that makes Dwarf less interesting/cool in 5E.

As for more iconic species for D&D:

• Orc and Dwarf are definitely iconic.
• The draconic Kobold rates rather high IMHO since non D&D kobolds were gnomish/goblinish IIRC. YMMV on whether they are an iconic PC species in addition to enemies. It would depend on how diverse of species your group considers for their characters.
• Oh and Dragons themselves are a rather iconic D&D species, and can be an iconic D&D PD species. There is a Dragon PC in the campaign I am running right now.

[JusticeZero]

This is why I basically *don't do D&D anymore*. I'll run fantasy games with the common engines and a lot of the mechanics, but I am So. Over. It. when it comes to the shared world that people call "fantasy".
It's a tired shared world. It was great back when people were recovering from WWI. Today it's just really dated. We can do better than this. It's not like we lack parts to work with.

[Psyren]

Are the companions excluded from the stats or does it include any character created by the character creator (such as companions talking to Withers about respecing)? If it includes the companions, then it is a huge skew.

Per their stats, less than 10% of players chose origin and the majority of those are Gale. That's still a lot of players, but not enough to matter relative to general human popularity.

More evidence that there might be a difference between the 5E and 3E Dwarf that makes Dwarf less interesting/cool in 5E.

I think the difference comes less from changes to the dwarf and more from the game having changed around it. Tieflings were pretty disadvantageous in 3.5 due to their level adustment, and dragonborn were nightmarishly complicated for new players in terms of figuring out what your final racials actually were. 5e doesn't have any of those mechanical problems, so it makes sense that Tiefling and Dragonborn adoption would have risen sharply.

This is why I basically *don't do D&D anymore*. I'll run fantasy games with the common engines and a lot of the mechanics, but I am So. Over. It. when it comes to the shared world that people call "fantasy".
It's a tired shared world. It was great back when people were recovering from WWI. Today it's just really dated. We can do better than this. It's not like we lack parts to work with.

Eh? People moving on from dwarves and hobbits to less Tolkienesque fare seems like a sign of life to me. It means younger audiences who didn't get exposed to fantasy through Middle-Earth are still joining the hobby. That's a good thing!

[Xervous]

As for more iconic species for D&D:

• Orc and Dwarf are definitely iconic.
• The draconic Kobold rates rather high IMHO since non D&D kobolds were gnomish/goblinish IIRC. YMMV on whether they are an iconic PC species in addition to enemies. It would depend on how diverse of species your group considers for their characters.
• Oh and Dragons themselves are a rather iconic D&D species, and can be an iconic D&D PD species. There is a Dragon PC in the campaign I am running right now.

I take issue with most dragon adjacent races and creatures for the sheer abundance of varieties and for their existence diluting the impact of proper dragons. We’ve seen dragons, drakes, wyverns, half dragons, dragon blooded, spawn of Tiamat, kobold, dragonborn and more. How many wish,com dragons are we due for? (Automatic link parsing? Hope the comma disabled it)

That being said I appreciate kobolds for being unique and memorable. Being developed in the earlier editions was a great boon for them lore wise. It’s a great contrast to Dragonborn which still feel like that years later fan service DLC character who didn’t get full story integration.

[Psyren]

I don't know about every prior edition, but 5e only has two playable draconic races (Kobolds and Dragonborn.) I think that's a perfectly reasonable number.

While Dragonborn are more recent and mechanically fraught, I think they're slowly getting to an ideal place. To me it makes no sense that a dragon creature should be missing darkvision (even kobolds got it) and now they're fixing that. The breath weapon is cool, but punished martials who gave up more attack damage to use it, that's getting fixed now too.

[Metastachydium]

I don't know about every prior edition, but 5e only has two playable draconic races

There's many more in 3.5, sitting at various levels of playable. That includes lower age categories of practically all True Dragons, even.

[Psyren]

Yeah I knew about 3.5 (hence me saying "not every") but not the others.

But I was mostly responding to Xervous who believed that draconic races "diluted the impact" of "proper dragons" - I don't think dragonborn and kobolds do that myself.

[Grim Portent]

Kind of depends how many there are in one given setting. When you have 3.5 style dragon/draconic variants of damn near everything it does start to get a bit silly if you include them all at once. Dragon-horses, dragon-dogs, dragon-men, dragon-gnomes, dragon-centaurs, so on and so forth. Of course you can do a dragon themed game where all the dragon-y stuff is around, dragons are super fundamental to the setting and many forms of life are related to them, or the gods are all dragons, or nation Y used magic to make dragon hybrids.

D&D just kind of has too much stuff in similar roles to use all at once, so if you take things in a vaccuum it comes across as very crowded in a way it might not in actual play.


It's a bit like the space wolves from Warhammer. Having a dragonborn who worships a dragon god, who's riding a dragon gets into Wolf Wolfson of the Space Wolves riding his Thunderwolf levels of repetitive territory, and can come across as over the top in a silly way that a human who worships a dragon god and rides a dragon might not.

[LibraryOgre]

I'm personally not a huge fan of draconic kobolds, myself. I've always preferred the dog-people ones.

[Cygnia]

I'm personally not a huge fan of draconic kobolds, myself. I've always preferred the dog-people ones.

Combine the two -- Draco Corgis!

[Mordar]

I'm personally not a huge fan of draconic kobolds, myself. I've always preferred the dog-people ones.

QFT. Kobolds are little Gnolls, not little Draconians.

- M

[LibraryOgre]

Combine the two -- Draco Corgis!

I prefer to think of them as looking more like coyotes with mange. Their scales aren't a sign of being draconic, but a symptom of not washing enough. Maybe rat-tailed foxes?

[Psyren]

I'm personally not a huge fan of draconic kobolds, myself. I've always preferred the dog-people ones.

Do you know when/why they changed? I feel like I never know what causes these seismic shifts in fantasy race norms. It's pig orcs getting ditched for greenskins all over again.

[LibraryOgre]

Do you know when/why they changed? I feel like I never know what causes these seismic shifts in fantasy race norms. It's pig orcs getting ditched for greenskins all over again.

Pretty much 3rd edition. 1e kobolds

Spoiler: 1e kobolds

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Flat-out dog face. The scales might well be armor; it looks similar to what is on others wearing armor.

Spoiler: 2e kobolds

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A lot more rat-like, to be sure, but still not reptilian. That's the image that led to the

It's only when you get to 3e that you get something explicitly reptilian.

[Mordar]

I didn't play 2E at all, so missed out on the Kobold Skaven phase. The horns were always hard for me to reconcile on the 1e kobolds, but I still wanted them canine. Because I wanted them as a junior league to gnolls. For reasons.

Sure, the description says hairless, says they lay eggs...but that's just because they are evil, perverted canines. (It also says they have hide, not scales...which only matters a little).

- M

[GloatingSwine]

Original Kobolds were basically "what if Chihuahua but bipedal". Much yipping.

[Psyren]

It's only when you get to 3e that you get something explicitly reptilian.

I'm honestly not so sure. I totally agree with you on 2e being clearly not reptilian, but 1e actually looks closer to lizardy to me. Even ignoring the scale armor(?) their shins look scaled in their own right, and the horned head ridge reads much more like lizard to me than dog.

I found this Stack thread with some Gygax quotes that sent me down a rabbit hole quickly, but the short version seems to be that Gygax didn't have a specific image in mind and the artists were left to run wild. They were goblins but smaller, no, they're dogs, no, they're rats, but also they're green and hairless and lay eggs, but also they bark and yip.

[LibraryOgre]

The easiest solution, of course, is that "kobold" is kind of like "little brown job" in birding... it doesn't describe a particular creature, just a small, obnoxious, humanoid.

In the 5e style, you might make them different subraces of kobold.

[Amnestic]

I'm personally not a huge fan of draconic kobolds, myself. I've always preferred the dog-people ones.

They don't show up super often, but Dungeon Meshi's kobolds run through every dog breed, with variations in body type to match.

Spoiler

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Of course this puts them more firmly in the "beastkin" set of races (like tabaxi and loxadons) rather than "little anklebiters" (like goblins), which might not be quite what people are after these days.

[Elves]

they never were

[Boci]

they never were

Something about your profile tells me you could be biased....

[LibraryOgre]

Of course this puts them more firmly in the "beastkin" set of races (like tabaxi and loxadons) rather than "little anklebiters" (like goblins), which might not be quite what people are after these days.

Hackmaster explicitly goes with this, to the point where kobolds can talk to canines (as gnomes do burrowing mammals), and don't have thumbs.

[Satinavian]

I like them as homanoid mini dragon race. Way better than dragonborn.

But we were supposed to talk about dwarves, right ?