Personally I hate the idea of one of my adventurers walking around with an elephant head, cat head or any other animal head. Verging on ridiculous. It breaks the immersion for me. It belongs in Egyptian mythology not D&D lore.

So this is a race I will ban in my campaigns. 

I agree. I feel the same way about dragonborn and orcs. The core races should be the classical ones that resemble humans the most. Exotic races should not be core. Good news is we can just do that - not have them in our settings.

I really wish they'd brought in aasimar as the alternative to tieflings. Feels strange that didn't happen.

People will pay to be able to play new, 'cool' races - so we're getting new, 'cool' races. I suppose that's fine. But when I consider applying for a pbp game, and there's no humans, elves or dwarves - but any number of centaurs, tabaxi, bullywugs, leprecauns and gelatinous cubes - I just don't. I get like a brief, sharp pain behind the eyes, shrug my shoulders and think 'meh'.

Oh and dragonborn. I don't even like dragons, the only dragon that was ever worth it was Smaug. Since Smaug, dragons are overdone.

Disagree. Same could be said about tieflings and dragonborn. And they are part of the core rules already. Sure in your homebrew games you can do whatever you want. But wanting them gone from any future corebooks because you don't like them is nonsensical.

I'm not of the opinion that there should only be three or four races, but Aardlings are sort of my personal line. They feel a lot more intrusive then any of the other beastfolk races, especially with Aasimar already being a thing.

Also I don't think they're good representation of Egyptian mythology either, don't quote me on this cause I could very well be wrong, but I think Egyptian gods were depicted with an animal head and human body to represent their different forms at the same time.

Edit: remembered google shortly after posting this, while the shapeshifting thing is true according to most theories, there are also a wide variety of other reasons not least of all being "because they had animal heads".

Quote from Enrif >>

Disagree. Same could be said about tieflings and dragonborn. And they are part of the core rules already. Sure in your homebrew games you can do whatever you want. But wanting them gone from any future corebooks because you don't like them is nonsensical.

I say the same for Tieflings and Dragonborn, but in practice I don't see many people playing either. There are lots of stereotypes and overly dramatised stories, but they're not present in the games I've been playing.

So I think it's an adaptation thing. Perhaps someone can tell me from the days of D&D Next or earlier: what were the initial receptions of tieflings and dragonborn being playable races? I imagine they'd have been jarring additions until people calmed down and accepted them, like I will Ardlings when they make it to the final product.

Truth be told I don't know why I'm all that bothered, I got into D&D in the hopes of playing a Minotaur, and well, here we are! I suppose it's what I deem an excess of monstrous races that makes them normal and takes away the novelty, but then as the OP says: it's up to us to decide what's in our games and what is not. ^^

I don't much care for the name and wonder at its source, but wouldn't mind if they were called Vessen presuming it doesn't copyright infringe on Grimm.  D&D had lupines and stuff even in the TSR era; and those based on an actual greek myth featuring an island of dog headed folk.

Quote from Maelora69 >>

But hey, they gotta win the Furries votes somehow, huh? 

 They'll never be able to beat Tabaxi for that goal.  What other animal is sexier than a cat?!?

I've never understood the obsession with telling players who they can play as. As DM, I have nearly unlimited power over the world, I can build and play as hundreds of different characters. I can shape history, create futures. Natural disasters and wars are mere playthings to me. While I may make certain aspects of the game available or not available as appropriate to the setting...why would I feel the need to tell a player who they, other than to serve the story, can or can't play as? I don't like certain races, sure, I have opinions and they're not limited to worldbuilding. But to be so controlling over their comparatively tiny domain because I don't like how their character looks? There's no need. I might prefer that the party was more...natural...but they're there to have fun, not to tell my story. If I want that kind of control, I can carry on writing a book.

I mean this is all up for review and discussion give wizards your feedback it is why they are doing it 

Quote from Linklite >>

I've never understood the obsession with telling players who they can play as. As DM, I have nearly unlimited power over the world, I can build and play as hundreds of different characters. I can shape history, create futures. Natural disasters and wars are mere playthings to me. While I may make certain aspects of the game available or not available as appropriate to the setting...why would I feel the need to tell a player who they, other than to serve the story, can or can't play as? I don't like certain races, sure, I have opinions and they're not limited to worldbuilding. But to be so controlling over their comparatively tiny domain because I don't like how their character looks? There's no need. I might prefer that the party was more...natural...but they're there to have fun, not to tell my story. If I want that kind of control, I can carry on writing a book.

 While I see your point, my reply would be simple: The races of old - dwarf, elf, halfling, etc. - are invariably played as humans with beards, humans with pointy ears, short humans with hairy feet. 

Players are, almost entirely without exception, incapable of playing as something foreign from human. I've played for 35+ years, and I've yet to meet someone who brings anymore than a few trite tropes to any demihuman. Maybe my experience is just skewed. 

But basically, if they cannot play an elf, they sure as hell also cannot play a centaur, or a dragonborn, or a gelatinous cube. 

I'll add, in fairness, that you're also right: I'm protecting my story and worldbuilding. Unless I'm setting the story as a fable, you don't get to play a bunny. And I do want to run a fable (by simply refluffing whatever race as whatever animal - so the 'dwarf' get's to be a grumpy badger, for instance), but then you don't get to play an elf. 

My god, in Dark Sun there were Thri'kreen. Cannibal insects who hunt sentients and have no vocal chords and a pack mentality, and they were still availabe for play, and still played as humans with chitin armor - and a poor excuse for acting out in the group dynamic. 

I dig them.

Quote from Comrade_Jenkens >>

I really wish they'd brought in aasimar as the alternative to tieflings. Feels strange that didn't happen.

 I agree 100% Aasimars are to Tieflings as Humans are to Orcs.

These are definitely a stealth playtest for something else. They feel so out of place in the document.

If I'm going to pretend they're actually planning to make them a core race... Meh? It's weird, sure, but I'm fine with it. It's a culture expansion, not a genre expansion or whatever. Like, it's not laser guns.

Depends on what a DM wants for their world. If you are going to do classic fantasy, then the original lineup from 2E works. It all depends on the tastes of the players and the GM. I remember when Drow first became a playable race. I thought it was ridiculous. It was only added because of the popularity of a certain ranger with a panther. Drow's were very OP and would disrupt the flow of the game. 

I prefer low fantasy games so a mouse-headed divine creature just doesn't sit well with me and I agree with previous posts. Why add them when they had a perfectly good Aasimar sitting right there?

They are not so odd tbh, anyone with an interest in celestial beings in D&D and interest in other angel properties outside of it should see the influences.

Aasimar were very clearly modeled after the generic celestials and the "popular lore" of Judeo-Christian angels. They were golden skinned radiant beings with pristine wings, or for some they were the fallen angel archetype modeling the esthetic around Lucifer.

The Aardlings clearly draw from several inspirations, the popular one noted is the animal headed gods of Egyptian lore, but many are also forgetting the other side of celestial creatures- the Archons. In the past many of these were depicted as having animal-like features. Equally, historically many angels in Judeo-Christian lore are said to have the features of animals- Seraphim specifically.

There's plenty of inspiration they could have taken from to create them, and the popular thought of celestial creatures is the radiant bodybuilder with white wings, so I can see why people don't like the idea, but to say they're uninspired is just outright incorrect.

This being said, I also am not a fan with the exceptions of the fringe cases of an archon-based character, or an Egypt inspired game. But that's D&D, if they don't work at your table don't use it.

People have been doing this for as long as “exotic” races have existed anyway. My old DM would not allow dragonborn, tortles, or any other not-vaguely-human race in his games for the same reason. That never made sense to me. It is a fantasy world.

Anyway, I DM now. I allow whatever is official content and no one is asking to play at the “human-like only for immersion” table anymore.

I do not believe it's a serious attempt at using Egyptian influence. The actual mechanics and flavor provided in the playtest document for ardlings is obviously just a redesign of aasimar but they're furries now. There is nothing about it that remotely resembles anything Egyptian aside from "humans with animal heads." And you can customize how furry you want your furry PC to be because it goes into detail about how they "might have" fur/hide/feathers to match their animal head or they can have "supple bare skin." They aren't fooling anybody, it's a customizable furry race for the furries who keep screeching about how "what D&D really needs is hyena/fox/bat/snitty alligator/mouse/capybara/etc people!" The ardlings exist to say "Here's your furry race, pick your animal. And if you liked to play aasimar, you're a furry now if you want to do it RAW."

Quote from Flushmaster >>

 And if you liked to play aasimart, you're a furry now if you want to do it RAW."

 Aasimar aren't going away. MMM is supposed to go with the 2024 core books, and MMM has the aasimar.