The Tiefling Race - DnD Race Spotlight - Player Character Tips

[Music] hello and welcome to this episode of how to be a great player my name is guy and today we're looking at the playable race of tiefling this is the horned child of a devil or a demon pected human who has been born with this legacy which now will haunt them until the day they die or at least may haunt them depending on the particular campaign setting that your GM is running now tee flings are fairly unique to Dungeons & Dragons but this basically will go for any kind of playable race that has had a demonic involvement in the past it's very clearly labeled that the tiefling is not a direct result of the demon involvement it is something that happened in the past a pact or some kind of conjugation happened with them a demon and the ancestor of the tiefling and as a result they have been cursed with this appearance of being demonic as well as certain demonic abilities and powers which of course carry through now what makes the tiefling different from the other races apart from the mechanical advantages and disadvantages and there are other videos and other channels out there who will look into that but what makes them specifically different from the other races is the inherent distrust and the almost evil nature that follows the tiefling as a written race now the half walk has long been with us in Dungeons and Dragons and another campaign worlds of course but they kind of shunned but wow they're just big half orcs and that had a tragic parentage on the other hand he flings are actively shunned against their watched when they walk into stores according to the book shopkeepers keep a close eye on these tea flings who are known to be rogues and thieves the community is actively against them and they have to form their own little sects Orca balls that live together and sort of protect one another it's an incredibly dark space as a character to be in it's a persecuted space and we have plenty of persecution here on planet earth for you to draw from whatever group you want to look at so that to me is where we have to start is not necessarily with the physical attributes those are horns and eye color and tail and that kind of thing and we'll get to those in this video we will but it's about looking at the headspace that you're tiefling happens to be in and there's three different zones that you could put your tiefling into as far as I can see it there is the defeated zone now the defeated zone are basically apologists they're tea flings who accept that they've had this dark parentage this lineage from way back when and they know that they're kind are usually evil and distrusting and so they basically apologize for is they slink around in the back they morose theme base they've accepted their fate but they are depressed and saddened by it then you get the Defiant types those are the types who rebel against their nature and they claim just because I have horns a tail no pupils and I'm inherently red skinned does not make me evil does not make me necessarily a thief straightaway and I will do everything I can to try and prove that as well as have you know marches down the street celebrating their tiefling lessness and all those kinds of wonderful things that people who traditionally have been segregated and persecuted for do once they've achieved liberation which is fantastic and as it has functions and all those kinds of things but if that's what your tiefling wants to do then so be it the third type of tiefling is the the the devilish tiefling I wonder the D so it was defiant defeated devilish and the devilish one is the one who goes well if you think I'm evil I might as well make use of that and play up to the fact that I'll steal things and if I get caught so to say it was in my nature I am by virtue of the horns evil so what did you expect the devilish tiefling is the one who sets a bad tone for the rest of them and who keeps the myths alive that tea flings are inherently all self-centered little demons running around trying to well basically get away with whatever they can so when you look at those three different personality types you've got three potentially very different types of character there the fire starter the one who is up in everyone's face and who promotes the idea of evil tea flings the one who accepts it and tries to prove against it and then the one who accepts it and apologizes for it Anders is basically just self punishing and self-deprecating whenever they possibly can because they have this complex and rightfully so now one of the important things that you need to bear in mind is that these complexes then don't translate into creating a bad type of character you don't want to have the defeated character who's basically an Eeyore just too depressed negative characters throughout the entire game they need to be defeated they need to be accepting that their role should be in a bad place and when a city god orders that they stay out of City Limits they need to accept it with the humility and with the humbleness that has come of accepting their status they don't need to fight the guard that I need to do anything all those sort of lines unless the party needs them to go with them into town in which case then they should perhaps offer that the guard takes their weapons or that they wear handcuffs when they enter into the town in other words to find a workaround around this negative attitude if the character is devilish and wants to promote the idea that the tea-things are evil you need to do so in a way that isn't going to jeopardize the party because otherwise the party's gonna get tired of this show-off who's really just out there to destroy themselves and to prove that they are evil when they're probably not so it's a character journey of trying to be this firebrand the creature that fights back and does all of its dastardly things but at the same time still helping its party because it realizes that that family is very important and of course the one that's accepting but defiant can be set accepting and to find and work with the party of course that makes the most sense the critical thing in my opinion is that the tiefling comes from a space where the tea flings have to stick together so there's a strong sense of community but it's not just community of my family it's not just those kinds of bonds which the other races have it is the bond of difference we are different from everybody else so we stick together because of that difference it's basically like a bunch of role players getting together at a weird convention it's nice to be amongst your own kind and so your tiefling needs to bear in mind and see the party as being that space that safe space where they don't have to be necessarily at tiefling who's defensive or a tiefling who's apologetic or a tiefling who is aggressive they can just relax and let their homes down you then need to look at the idea of the history of your family so this is not the character's history the character's history you're free to create and to do as you like but something that you have to include which other races don't is you need to have an idea of how your family got into this business in the first place what was that pact who made it is it a mystery and you need to try and uncover it is it something that's just there if I had in my family history someone who had made a pact with an all-powerful demon I'd want to know what that pact was or perhaps I'd be a denialist and say I don't want to know what it is because maybe I will go down the same path and be as evil as my progenitor or the ancestor who got us into this mess in the first place so that's something to bear in mind another thing to bear in mind is that they have tail and horns this is something that often gets forgotten about halls useful for all sorts of things you're gonna hang things on them you can do decorate them in very specific ways I mean if I look at my my set of horns here I could hang jewelry off of it I could roast marshmallows on it potentially if I don't feel anything in my horns and a tail although there are not although there are specific feats to have prehensile tails that allow you to manipulate everything the idea here is that you do still have a tail now even the most unbendable rigid type of tail you can imagine can still be used to poke or prod and the book says the tail is five foot in length that's quite a long appendage that could be used to slide stuff to pull stuff it could be a very important moment now I had a player who was playing a tiefling and a particular PC NPC that they antagonize cut his tail off and it became such a moment for that poor poor poor player for his character anyway as it was a matter of pride that he no longer had a tail and he had to try and get it back and eventually he did but it was a fantastic adventure that they went on because it was part of the character something you must do is make it part of your character is embrace the tail use the tail love the tail now again I've spoken about not being a loner I'm just checking my notes here to make sure that I've gone through everything don't be a loner make sure that you stick with that party and that you've got this sense that you're gonna work together use you're one of the DS whatever one you happen to be try and look at how that influences your decisions try and roleplay out how it would feel to be in a society that looks down upon you as being a degenerate someone that is inherently going to be miss trustworthy and who has no value in society try and place yourself in that situation when creating this tiefling to see what adventure options open up as you can explore this rather interesting species until next time hit the like button if you like this and if you want to see more sort of discussions around the different races and I'm not just going to stick to races from Dungeons and Dragons will look at races from science fiction if you so like as we can explore and unpack all of these different things and how to look them from slightly different angles what an reaffirm the way that you are looking at them until next time however I wish you and yours the very happiest of them [Music]

Channel: How to be a Great GM

Views: 54,953

Rating: 4.9515781 out of 5

Keywords: dnd 5e, dungeon masters guide, Dungeon master tips, Game master review, Dungeon building, Dnd gm tips, dnd, d&d, dnd gm tips, game master tips, Great game master, Tabletop Roleplaying, GM, How to GM, How to be a great game master, Game Master, Great Game Mastering, How to, How to be a great dungeon master, DM Tips, Dungeon Master, RPG, Game Master Tips, Dungeon Master Tips, GMing Tips, DMing Tips, dnd tiefling, tiefling, tiefling lore, tiefling race 5e, tiefling dnd

Id: tMiUE11YNW0

Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 14 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/TheGentlemanK]

In my Homebrew world Tieflings are basically the children of crusaders who fought at the very gates of Hell too long and were warped by it. Indeed one of the most important heroic saints of my world was a Tiefling.

Tieflings are not at all out of place, and even looked at with awe or respect. It’s a pretty significant flavour departure I admit.

[u/Ianoren]

I think roleplay too often ignores your race and background to develop your character. One of my least favorite things is when these bizarre races are basically treated as any random human. Though being ostracized completely is no fun so it can be very fun to have people more interested since they never encountered a Tiefling rather than frightened and defensive.