Why aren't beast races like Lizardman or Kenku more popular? Am I the only one that thinks the vanilla dwarf and elf races are incredibly boring most of the time?
What makes beast races so much more interesting, in your opinion?
>>47124083
Nigger, is having Dragon born not enough for you?
>>47124083
>humanoids
Meh. They're all pretty much the same.
Most people aren't furries. Yet.
Eh. People see lizards and nearly automatically think "That lizard is probably a huge bastard" so it is safe to say they'll make the same assumption with lizardmen. What I usually end up doing is leaving lizardmen as a race out of games entirely. Honestly, the last time I included semi-sapient lizards into a game it rapidly spiraled out of control and ended up with a forest fire and 2 dead PCs.
>>47124105
Elves, dwarces,gnomes, and halfings all fall under the category of slightly different looking Humans with a slightly different culture. Beast races have much more interesting and alien designs and lore.
>>47124139
Dragonborn are shit.
>>47124218
Story time?
>>47124237
>designs
So it's mostly visual?
>and lore
Examples?
>>47124380
Designs of the races themselves and their cities, weapons, clothes, and armor are all going to be more creative by default than the standard Dwarves and Elves.
I don't think I've seen any interpretation of Elves or Dwarves that are original. They are pretty much interchangeable.
Lore wise Elves and Dwarves fill very specific and tired archetypes. Lizardman and other beast/alien races are refreshing and provide a more fantastical alternative too the standard race selection.
>>47124237
>Dragonborn are shit.
Too fucking right.
Yeah when it comes to being a fantasy character, I like to be a little "out there" in terms of design. I was able to play as a lizardfolk ranger. We also had a half-dragon in our party.
>>47125016
I agree. My setting does not feature elves and dwarves for that reason. Instead I went with various beastmen, lizard men, kobolds, trolls, and humans of many bloodlines.
It's not that creative but at least it's not totally boring.
>>47124083
Widespread popularity tends to feed on itself. Elves and dwarves are widespread, and so most people were familiar with them when they first started gaming, and so they nostalgia hard for elves and dwarves. The original and interesting authors, when deciding what to write, either write elves/dwarves because that's what they're familiar with or because that's what's popular. And then people are more interested in elves and dwarves, because of the better writing about them.
The other aspect is, well, what makes lizardmen interesting? What makes them comparative? When talking about dwarves, you have large amounts of literature and history and lore surrounding them. What do lizardmen have, beyond Warhammer and being walking alligators?
Also, in the realm of D&D, people seem to like their characters fucking each other. Not many people want to see giant walking crocs fucking humans, or the other way around. I'm sure just a little bit of squick keeps at least some people away.
>>47124083
>>47124083
Not "human" enough.
I know that here MonMusu is the norm, but most people wouldn't cuddle a lizard.
>>47124139
>dragon anything
>not tired as fuck
C'mon now, why not dinosaurs or elephants or crabs or echinoderms or whatever?
>>47124083
95% of it is the internet and the furry scare.
It will fade once the people who thought that meme was funny become the weird old men, and we'll get our ubiquitous bugs bunnies once again.
>>47124218
>"That lizard is probably a huge bastard"
Really? When I see a lizard I think "That guy is all right so long as I don't poke at him all fucking day."
It's mostly because degenerate retards think that wanting to play as an socially advanced beast-like race with quasi-alien viewpoints and sensibilities translates to "I want to dress up like animals and fuck people." or "I am an otherkin."; And GOD HELP YOU if their reproductive habits are different from the human norm.
Hell, my GM takes advantage of beast-races all the fucking time, like that one time we were explorers in a village of slugpeople in a gigantic forest, and the canopy above us was absolutely littered with these luminous, somewhat beautiful, bright blue flower-like constructs.
>>47125481
Speak for your self. I would most definitely cuddle the lizard.
>>47124083
>Lizardman
Very bland.
Niche (swamp-dwelling tribals) can be done better with Orcs.
Nothing distinguishing about them beyond being big lizards.
>Kenku
Stabby,sneaky birdmen are okay but they've got no depth.
>>47125016
>lizardfolk and half-dragon
>"out there"
You sheltered 3.x players never cease to provide a good laugh.
>>47126251
Why is the orc better by default? Because you are to lazy to read the lore section?
>>47126251
>Nothing distinguishing about them beyond being big lizards
>Scaled skin & shedding
>Cold blooded
>Purely carnivorous
>Egg layers
>nothing about this couldn't be done by an Orc
You're stupid.
Best way to do Beast Races is when you go all out on their cities and society, famallama.
Is a Tigerfolk town full of trees?
Do Equines build forts and call them Stables?
Do Micepeople usually build their cities in other cities?
>>47126419
>Scaled skin & shedding
Unless you're a lizard fetishist, there's nothing inherently interesting about this.
>Cold blooded
Won't come up at all except in cold areas/seasons.
>Purely carnivorous
>Egg layers
And?
See, absolutely boring unless you're a herpetologist.
>>47126341
>Why is the orc better by default?
It's more recognizable. Lizardmen are usually just one of way too many lizard people in any given fantasy milieu. I great prefer Trogs over Lizardfolk because their stench at least makes them stand out from the scaly masses.
>>47125266
>What do lizardmen have, beyond Warhammer and being walking alligators?
This is because A: like you said elves and dwarves were already pre-existing folkloric creatures, where lizardmen don't have anything already made for them. Also, the major cultural pieces driving the perception of "standard fantasy" chose elves and dwarves for one reason or another, and whatever is popular, influential and therefore profitable is copied en masse. If Tolkien had the Uruk-Hai have scales and tails you'd be asking why anyone would play as an Orc. You sort of answered your own question there.
Secondly, people have preconceptions about what is and isn't a dwarf or an elf. If I said that my dwarves are a species of tribal hunters, who roam the plains of their homelands using their mastery of horsemanship to bring down lumbering elephant-analogues and then sell the skins and tusks to human traders to satiate their need for exotic drugs, a lot of people are going to say "Those aren't dwarves!"
Indeed, if you stray too far away from the basic formula of "Mountain-dwelling miner", what point is there in calling it a Dwarf beyond the basic appearance being the same? When trying to make something different instead of just the same fantasy world that everyone's seen, why conform to that pigeonholed idea at all and not just come up with something else?
>>47126581
Trogs, Orcs, Ogres, Trolls, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Giants, Mongrel Men. Orcs aren't more unique in their group.
>>47124083
One of my favorite characters I have ever run was a lizardman warrior. His ENTIRE reason for adventuring was to get as much cloaca as possible. To this end he dressed like a caveman pimp, wearing the skins/claws/teeth of all the various dangerous creatures he had killed to further impress the lady lizards.
>>47126719
>Trogs
Smelly lizards
>Orcs
Tusked Huns
>Ogres
Big cavemen. Overlap too much with Hill Giants and also lack anything interesting, they can keep Lizardfolk company in the dustbin
>Trolls
Not much going for them except the regeneration gimmick. Need work.
>Goblins
Ugly little imperialists. These little shits are much better that 3ebolds.
>Hobgoblins
Honrabbu Goblin samurai
>Giants
Hill Giants and Ogres share too much of the same niche but HGs have slightly better lore to draw from.
Stone Giants are primitive bros.
Storm Giants infringe on Cloud Giants niche while being infinitely less interesting.
Ice and Fire Giants rely too much on gimmicks on Cliff Notes Norse mythology to be really interesting but are easily recognizable.
Cloud Giants are the unpredictable dudes in sky castles.
>Mongrel Men
2e's "It hurts to live, I pray for death" Mongrel Men or 3e's "you're so speshul and quirky and totally not hideous :) " Mongrel Men?
The problem with non standard races isn't that they can't be interesting, it's that anything cool you do with them doesn't really belong to them. Elves and dwarves may get flack for their default fluff, but at least it's something to work off of. Everything unpopular is that way because it's basically thematic tofu.
>>47127027
That screencap is so sad.
>mfw "weird" characters aren't even weird
>mfw imaginative media will never be commercially successful
>mfw production will always be geared to the lowest common denominator
>>47127027
People say shit like that, but then you have shit like Wall-E with a mute, robot protagonist that people were able to connect to just fine.
>>47127184
>it's that anything cool you do with them doesn't really belong to them
You write it in your IP, and it's theirs, you don't need approval or anything. Can't say I understand that line of thinking. We are talking about fiction after all. You may elect not to, but that is a matter of choice.
>>47127218
Wall-E can visibly emote and his mannerisms on based on Charlie Chaplin. He's an exception that proves the rule.
>>47127455
And Charlie Chaplin's mannerism couldn't be used on a lizard person? They have the advantage of organic tissue. Don't see how that wouldn't be possible. Rango is a chameleon and a main character. If its no longer by Pixar or dreamworks, animation stops working for nonhumans?
>>47127523
>And Charlie Chaplin's mannerism couldn't be used on a lizard person?
No, because lizards don't have the same emotive capabilities. Kinda of like how a Thri-kreen can't smile with its mouth but it can "smile" with a certain configuration of its antennae.
>>47127616
>No, because lizards don't have the same emotive capabilities
The part of our own brain reserved for base instincts and emotions is literally referred broadly as the ''lizard-brain'' or the ''lizard part of our brains'' anon
Most of the complaints in this thread regarding various races is from a very AD&D 2nd Edition mentality and later.
Originally elves and hobbits and dwarves represented something more like thematic archetypes. Elves represent aristocracy and beauty and everything people want but also consider cold and unapproachable about the truly privileged. They have everything a man could want: looks, the blessing of the gods, immortality, and complete harmony with nature, but they are also detached and arrogant.
Dwarves represent the trades or middle class. They have insane work ethic. They admire great craftsmanship. But they're also greedy, and stubborn and lose sight of simpler things.
Hobbits represent pastorial people. They're chubby due to eating too much, aren't particular great at anything and don't like the unfamiliar. But also very brave when put to the test, and everyone underestimates them.
On top of this, they all have mythic prowess in particular things despite their sizes and humble appearances. Then at the same time they look just human enough to be relatable.
That's why these archetypes have held on for so long. The same could be accomplished with beast races, since we anthropomorphize animals and assign human traits to them they don't necessarily possess (foxes are sly, snakes are cunning, cats are cruel, dogs loyal, etc) But people will say if you make beast races like these that it is all hackneyed and cliched.
Guess what, motherfucker? You're playing in a fantasy setting. Everything comes from a core of Romantic thematic. Get over it. Gygaxian Realism gets taken wayyy too far now. It pretty much strangled the shit out of most creativity in worldbuilding around 3E
>>47127616
But Wall-E has no mouth. And a diminishment in facial utility doesn't render a charcter incapable of showing emotion, or using specific patterns, like that of Chaplin. I'm not denying artistic challenge of the task, but saying it can't be done, when it is in fact done and has been done numerous times is just wrong.
>>47126573
>Do Micepeople usually build their cities in other cities?
I enjoy this.
>>47124083
So the big reason to me is that with elves and dwarves you've got something that's relatively distinctive, different from our own cultural norms, almost alien even (to people that aren't on /tg/ and find them so boring and old hat), but that variations of are popular enough there's some amount of pre-existing familiarity.
If you introduce something equally distinctive, but completely new, you're going to have to have a lot of traction to get players to dive into all this world building.
With beast folk you've got those problems coming and going. The fascinating alien aspects of viewing life through an animal like lens with human intelligence can be hard to get into (for people that aren't already fascinated by ideas like this); but seen in a different light, it's just animal + person. It's too exotic and not exotic enough at the same time.
There's also the physical aspect; a lot of people want some degree of wish fulfillment from their characters, and if a creature looks too animal like, they don't get the charisma and panache associated with, well, "Yeah, I think chicks would fuck this character/I'd fuck this character."
>>47127676
Emotion is not the same as emoting. You can tell when a person or a dog is pissed just be looking at their face. You can't do the same with a lizard or insect.
>>47127723
>But Wall-E has no mouth.
He has eyes and eyebrows, which are just as important as a mouth.
>it is in fact done and has been done numerous times is just wrong.
Only with a high degree of anthropomorphization. Going back to Rango, he's essentially just a human dressed like a lizard. If you're doing that in fantasy, why not cut out the lizard and just use the human?
>>47126573
This is the big problem I have with lizardfolk in particular. They have no distinguishing social characteristics at all. You end up with characters who are weird lizards and refer to everyone else as "warmblood" but are otherwise entirely bland.
I'd rather not see a beastfolk race in the hands of a PC unless that race gets the full PF goblin treatment.
>>47127866
The best way to even begin making a race based on a real creature is to look at the creature itself and think about what it finds beautiful.
We evolved on a Pleistocene landscape, in fields of short grass where we could see predators coming, but close to tall trees that we could scramble up in case of emergency. So that's why we like parks and gardens and get kind've spooked out in woods. Because people who lived in woods tended to die more often than people on the hills and plains, and the people who got spooked by woods lived.
You can apply the same kind of thinking to lizard people. Lizards fucking love warmth, but also shade. Instead of trees, they'd probably love big tall, empty rock cliffs where they can go to sun themselves. But then build ladders or rope bridges down to where they can climb into their homes carved out of the rocks.
Lizards would probably also worship a sun god primarily.
Cultures develop out of geography and biology. Look to those first.
I've never seen a beast race character played in a way that was any different from any other race.
But somehow they end up being that person's favorite character.
I don't understand it
