Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
Each time they start over with a new edition, they are replacing dozens of books with just a few. Some content will not (yet) be included.

Any race that was invented for a specific edition of D&D involves a choice – do we update it to the new edition, or leave it where it is?

By contrast, men (eventually re-named humans), dwarves, elves, and hobbits (eventually re-named halflings) have been in D&D since the first three-pamphlet edition, because players who had never seen D&D wanted to play them.

When you tell somebody about D&D for the first time, after three sentences, nobody says, “I want to play a half-aasimar,” or “Can I be a tiefling?”

But people do say, “I want to play a hobbit like Bilbo,” or “Can I play a dwarf like Gimli?

Races that have, over the decades, pulled people into playing D&D for the first time are more likely to be included than races that people only learned about by playing D&D.



I'm pretty sure that's the real answer. While a lot of content has been invented just for D&D, playing in fantasy worlds like the ones we've read has always been a major draw for a lot of people.
bilbo and Gimli are not that big any more there like your dad's favourite rock band or something they are still going and deeply foundational but lots of things have since been spawned that have changed things greatly.