Firstly I feel like people are taking Larian's tone a bit too seriously; I think they're just trying to tease us and have a little joke.


Originally Posted by golw
I am happy to hear that people prefer grounded characters. Nothing is special and unique when everything is special and unique, this is the great failing of Pathfinder, most MMO's and the growing direction of D&D. I have to be honest, the tremendous number of Tieflings in that starter town doesn't bother me, but the fact that they are just plain humans who look different does. I found that to be pretty uninteresting.

Any time you write a character, you need to ask why it can't be a human. If you can't justify it, you're making the special race you chose less interesting as a whole.

Fantasy works best when the consumer's perspective is given some normalcy to explore an abnormal world. When the consumer, be it reader, viewer, or player is already the most special and unique thing about the setting, there's nothing terribly interesting left to tell as far as a story goes. That's why grounded protagonists are better, and why you're going to see more grounded characters.


Now as to this point, I think that you're being way too narrow-minded in your approach. Firstly they're tieflings because an incident in the town they come from made people stop trusting them, because their town got dragged literally into hell after it was sold to a demon. So no, they can't be human. Secondly, human shouldn't just be the default in fantasy. Because one of the most fun things you can do in fantasy is explore a world where humanity isn't the default. If you start creating every character by asking "why isn't this person human?" then you're starting from a flawed premise. If what you described is what you like in fantasy, I hope you find plenty of stuff to enjoy. But if things getting more fantastical is the growing trend, then that's probably because it's what most people want. I for instance never play human characters if I have the option not to, because I don't want to be the default. I don't even play elves or dwarves most of the time because they're still the "default" fantastical races.