Are Tieflings Just Too Evil Looking in 4e?
December 18, 2008 by shent_lodge
Filed under 4e, Game Design
In Alidor, tieflings have always been a PC option ever since the original Plainscape setting came out. Yeah they had a dark past evident by some physical clue, be it the smell of brimstone, or a small tail or sometimes scales. The options for horns, or nubs of horns was always there, but most of my players played down the horns and preferred more covert hints of their PCs lineage. In 4e, the tiefling got huge horns and a really scary look. My four year old son sees the tiefling pictures in my books and says instinctively ”Dad that is a bad guy”. I say no that is a good guy and he says no bad guys have red eyes and horns. Can’t argue with a four year old.
When I think of tieflings these images come to mind:
I guess I am still stuck on the “old School” version of the tiefling.
With 4e, WotC went with:
These guys just don’t look happy.
In general, I let players play what they want in my home game. I break down player characters into three categories Common, Uncommon and Rare.
This image represents examples of how I categorize PCs:
This is how I define my categories:
- Common races fit in wherever they go in Alidor.
- Uncommon races: Travel outside your homeland, or community is awkward. The odder and less “human” looking you are, the harder it is for you to find housing and friendship on the road. While traveling abroad you don’t have to worry about being chased by a mob, captured and burned at the stake. At least not during your first couple of days in town…
- Rare races: “You are a freak of nature. You scare people. Just your mere presence makes the locals uncomfortable. People will be friendly to you, but you know from experience that they are organizing. You may get one good day in town before a mob forms and forces you out. Venturing outside your homeland, or the City of Alidor is at your own risk.
In Alidor, tieflings tend to be uncommon to rare depending on how much they resemble their parentage.
Why the ram horns? Why so evil? My players don’t like the tiefling look. Even if they play in the Forgotten Realms, they said they would not play a tiefling, and don’t get me started with the Drow… They stayed evil from the get go in Alidor.
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There is nothing that stops you from usingth eold look in your game. The new appearance has no effect on game mechanics.
I have more of a problem with dragonborn. Humanoid with skin and hair, humanoid with skin and less hair, humanoid with skin and more hair.. giant scaly lizard?
My solution to the tiefling problem is to have them look almost entirely human. But then, in my setting, all of the races are just getting their start, so no one (except the giant lizards) looks too different from human yet.
I also prefer the “classic” tiefling look from Planescape. I really dislike the “new” look. It seems like WotC was intent on proving they had their own IP. Frankly they could have left out tieflings and dragonborn (another “look what we made”) as well as warlords and given us some more “classic” material like druids and bards.
First off, for disclosure I’m not a fan of 4e. That said, I have to say, I have not been impressed with the general art style that WotC uses. I can’t put my finger on it. It just seems wrong to me.
I don’t mind the dragon born, they fit in perfect with my caimen race which are now caimen eladrin in 4e. In 3.x of my home game the caimen produced dragon-kin, now in 4e, they produce dragonborn.
I like the artwork in the 4e books, but feel the tieflings are more iconically evil looking than they used to be. The imagery makes them less desirable as a PC class. Mechanically the class is sound. I just show players the planescape images if they want to know what their tiefling looks like.
Personally I make them look the way I want without the brow horns. Because dear lord, they are so fugly. My Tiefling has small horns, orange eyes and a tail. Still noticeable and mob-worthy, but not like 4edition’s idea of a brow-horned monstrosity.
@samantha
Just like you said, that is how you do a tiefling justice, just enough morphology to get the locals riled up, but not all crazy monster “I’ll bite your head off” evil beastie horn brows.
As a viciouslooking 4E tiefling cutthroat rouge, I say the look can be used role-wise. An intimidating creature, with a natural need to be, well, rougish. Now i must say I agree with **Oz** too, for those adventures that require the classsic. That’s the magic of dnd, it’s your game
I’m fairly certain it explains away Tiefling in the 4e phb ,its really that hard to accept ? I mean it basically says why Dragonborn and Tieflings aren’t too high on the totem pole after the wars that decimated them, but whatever….The new look is awesome, quit bitching and being stuck to the 3.5 and older ways .
Seriously , how do you get anyone new to play with you having such a bias view ? New player Erik wants to be a drow rogue , you guys get into the game , the whole party shuns him , you make npcs rude and basically assholes, and what does that cause? Makes you a terrible DM .
They’ve given us bards and druids now oz. Saying a race should have been left out is pretty debatable , seeing as 4.o has garnered so many new plays with its easy to handle style and mechanics.
A lot of my friends tend to play the out there races , like Tiefling , Genasi , Deva , and Dragonborn.
I can understand not wanting to play a race due to background and its looks , but the idea is that all of these races have meshed together. Some have mated together ( half-elf , half-orc) , and I’m fairly certain a tiefling or two have ended up with another from an opposite race.
Drow have always been a wild card , even when they explained them in the Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide, they tend to still have a bit of an evil streak or more loner-ish.
But the great part about dnd is its “your” game , so do with it what you will , but the fact remains this is all conjecture and very highly opinionated from every point.
@Lute it has been while and I have run many games with tiefling and dragonborn players now and they all enjoy the dynamic of adventuring in a world where they know the locals don’t like em. Some players have taken on the task of educating them about their prejudice others use it against them to scare folk into giving information. Drow are still a grey area and if a player really wants to play one I don’t say no.
@sammysosa We are all still PHB1 players so far. A couple people are thinking of trying PHB2 once they get through the story arc they are in. That it is “my game” is what makes it fun, actually it is our game, me just passing tales and guidelines, while the players develop the world around them. 4e is fun to run as a DM compared to earlier versions.
What race/class did you and your group decide to go with ? We had some odd combos. I personally got into Genasi / swordmage , its a lot of fun.
@sammysosa
We had a teifling rogue, but he died (Jim). We also had a halfling rogue (George), but he died too. They are still exploring the caves on Yates Hill and the Green Forest vicinity in Jelling. It has been slow going in my home game, because I have to travel 4hours to Wisconsin. The locals only want to play 4e RPGA stuff.
Dragonborn Pal Level 2 –George
Dwarf Rogue level 2 –Jim
Caiman (eladrin) warlock level 5–Gail -wife
Half elf Wizard level 5 –Jamie
Dragonborn Fighter level 4–Owen
Human Cleric level 4 –Elizabeth
We’ve got a few comic shops around here that have game rooms open till 2 am or later week nights, but we tend to stick around my place , lucky enough to have a warm carpeted basement to hide away in lol..
Tiefling rogue- Zin’Rae – my gf’s toon
Genasi Swordmage- Azhure- my toon
Summoner Wizard- Cinnamon- my best buds toon
Tiefling Bard- Lute- bud’s gf
Dragonborn Fighter- Blint- one of my work buddies
Dragonborn Sorc- Raynia- my gf’s sis
Deva Avenger- Socrates- another of my buds
Trying to think up another adventure for us , its quite hard though lol.. ><!
@sammysossa
The game shops around here are booked with full tables and or go out of business or change location every time the lease gets renewed.
I found adventures come easy if you listen to what players talk about around the table. The party found the body of a merchant from great City of Alidor in the Green Forest. They found a cool magical ring that does nothing. They figured out by talking with locals in Brendon Mill that he was in town a couple weeks back, but told folks he was headed towards Yatton.
Half the group wants to explore Yatton. A couple want to just sell the ring to a fence they met in Brendon Mill. One PC wants to book passage to Alidor to return the ring.
Each way leads to a dungeon and more adventure. All from a body in a forest with a magic ring that does nothing, or so the party thinks.
My notes from the dungeon: body by orc is a foreign merchant maybe has magic ring. Through table talk and DM embellishment more adventure was formed.
I’ve tried to talk to a few of them one likes and dislikes about most of my adventures I’ve come up with . A few see it as ruining the game if I use a part of their idea , and they tend to meta game and assume a plot.
It gets annoying , but I totally see your point about thinking up a great plot hook, a magic ring , a gruesome murder, or something out of the norm have tons of path choice.
What sort of traps and puzzles do you tend to toss around ?
Well, I can’t really tell you about my dungeon since my players read the blog too. I keep puzzles simple mainly clues hidden in poems I download from the Internet. As for traps they stay simple and level appropriate. I will tweak them on the spot if the party is in a good mood and the player doesn’t mind a challenge. I had a player named Chet that was a real sport and I could do things like drop gelatinous cubes on him after he fell in a pit. Most times they are basic poison needles or darts or pits or falling rocks. I don’t go nuts and the traps are usually around important things.
To be honest, I prefer the new look.
Tieflings in old editions looked nigh identical to humans. No longer the case here. And that’s a good thing IMHO because, after all, what’s the point of having races that all look the same?
Also, the whole peasants running after them with torches thing is sort of iconic with devil children. Why would you want to leave that part out? And why would you want to instill the moral lesson that good = beauitful and human-looking? Making the tieflings monstrous appearance seems like a good idea to me.
Guess I’m weird.
Hey, tielfings in the new edition are cool! and nowhere in the rules does it say you say your tiefling looks different. You can have a succubus descendent tiefling(hard considering the -2 cha in 3.5- I don’t know what it’s like in 4.0) and have them without the brow horns, you know, small horns, no horns, fangs claws, tail.. many things.
Bottom line, its your game. If you like the look, use it! if not, DON’T! S/He’s your character. Make him/her your own!
I apologize for the grammatical errors in my last post)
@Zedek,
I am like the king of typos and grammar errors, so no big deal.
I am much more comfortable with the tiefling now. I am over the shock of their appearance now. My players get to choose their appearance when they play them.
Thanks for the comment.
Before I start I will say that I have been playing for a since just before 3rd ed came out.
For me I have always played Tieflings, once FRCS came out with a bit more info on them I started using them a lot more. Sometimes to the annoyance of the party when they go yet another Tiefling (that quickly changed after I went to drow) For me the slight diabolic/demonic look gave them so much more character then a lot of the core races (I have never played a halfling, dwarf or gnome.) During 3,5 I was a part of a monthly convention style game run at my local gaming store and there I had a Tiefling rogue/psion/shadowmind that was only able to speak infernal and abyssal (so made everyone think she was a mute.) Now in 4e I have a Tiefling warlock (infernal naturally) and to me their new appearance suits them so well, Then again a lot of this could be put down to I can play evil characters really well. -_-’ Sorry for the long post but Tieflings are a favorite race of mine hence the rant.
@Lazoth,
Cool comment. I have had a couple players over the years play a PC that did not speak common. It always made for great role-playing like when one “mute” guy fell into a dark pit and started cursing and asking for help and none of the PCs above spoke his language. One player said “I think if we survive this, we are going to have learn whatever language that poor guy is speaking.” Another said “from the sound of it, whatever else is down there must have ate our poor mute friend.”
I have been drawn to the dark history of the tiefling. In earlier versions of the game that history could be more mysterious and less physically obvious and sometimes randomly chosen. That is what made me play them as a race. I can say I will always play a tiefling over a drow any day no matter what version of the game I play.
What I’m taking away from this article is that you, as a GM, like to force your players to play certain racial archetypes, and are willing to actively punish them in game for appearing as other than, or in your words, “less than” human. That seems pretty heavy-handed to me.
If you want heavy handedness for non-human races try the Midnight campaign setting. If your not human then unless your in your own kingdom, you getting found out = your dead. Oh I forgot to mention that the only god with power left in the world is the evil god, who want to kill and enslave the entire world. Go have a look for your self. I ran a small game. The party lasted 2 sessions before all but the human were killed.
@Lazoth I’ll look into that game. I try not to be too heavy handed it is more of a role play or challenge to the players here that choose obviously inhuman characters. Initially, when 4e came out in 2008, the tiefling was top dog of the inhuman types, this was shocking and it put out some of my more conservative players. These days there are all kinds of oddities created for players to run.
Your 4 year old son obviously never heard of Hellboy or Nightcrawler then huh? You need to educate your son that evil can look like a nice person or some nice looking “good guy” is gonna kidnap him.
Why so evil looking? READ the background description given on them. It’s all in the 4th ed PHB. Also read the pre 4th ed release notes on the tiefling in the races of 4th ed book. It talks about why they look the way they do. Demonic looking hero’s are apparently popular as far as WOTC was concerned.
@Lazoth: Sounds like an incredibly lame ass setting. “Oh you can only be human or racists kill you.” So much for variety. It’s incredibly poor DMing to allow people to play races you dont really want in your game and then be a dick to them because they choose it. It’s your fault for not having a firm enough spine to say “NO”. Passive agressive DMing like that is so bad and unfair to everyone.
@Scott, The common, uncommon and rare category for races are for role play and skill challenges for players as they adventure. Large communities are racially neutral. In all my years of running the world no PC has ever been mobbed and killed because of her race. Only the elves of Taluo and Melbrindar Keep are isolationists with their laws.
These are base guidelines but in the end the players at the table vote on all home rules and actually their suggestions are added to the game. We really do have fun playing this way.