The Tavern

Since devs was removed MD because it's D&D, DCSS is probably a non-D&D like fantasy, but, probably DCSS is Greek mythology, it does not look so on, to me it looks D&D like fantasy.

I don't think I can properly explain why mountain dwarves were removed, but I'm pretty sure "they're too much like D&D" was not on the list.

DCSS is a blend of many mythologies and inspirations as well as original content, of which the ancient Greeks are only a part.

There's plenty of both D&D in DCSS.

I think you might be confusing mountain dwarves with Kenku. Kenku (A copyrighted bird folk from D&D) was changed to Tengu (A bird like creature from Japanese mythology) to avoid potential issues. At least that's what the wiki says, that change was before my time so I may be mistaken.

I'm sure MD were removed just so that we could have lots of interesting and fruitful discussions about the subject.

I thought MD were removed because they were Tolkien, not specifically DnD?

It was slightly before my time (I was contributing, but not on the devteam yet), but:

Three races (MD HO Mi) were felt to be too similar, so something had to go. That left the question of which one of those three. Orcs got a pass because they have an entire god devoted to them, so it was between dwarves and minotaurs. The feeling that dwarves are clichéd played a part in that decision, and definitely was one of the standard responses to to "you can't remove MD, they are necessary to fantasy" objection. However, I think another reason is that Mi and HO were further apart than MD and HO (in terms of aptitudes, since none of those three races really had a gimmick at the time, excepting Beogh).

We are wary of adding D&D-isms, but also fully aware that there are plenty of them in Crawl already. Draconians are much more of a D&D-ism than Mountain Dwarf ever was.

Edit: misremembered dpeg's priorities.

(offtopic:) I read some of the comments there. Was Troll changed rather massively since then, because I see some people complaining that Tr and Og could barely be played? Or is this general clueless whining?

clueless

The comments there are always brutal. I rarely read them, because I value my sanity.

I sometimes reread them because they amuse me greatly.

Me too!