D&D 5E Capricious Home Rules and DM Pet Peeves

[Celebrim]

Oh yeah, I'm well aware that I'm in the minority. The annoying thing is, it's a genre that I love and I would have expected to love reading them, especially since they are raved about so much. Then I try reading them, get part way in, then quit because I don't find them entertaining.

My wife spent four months pushing her way through 'Fellowship of the Rings'. She claimed that she thought she'd never make it through the Mines of Moria. But then she read the next two volumes in about four days, unable to put them down, racing to the finish.

Interestingly, when I was 10 I wouldn't have been able to imagine that complaint. I thought the Mines of Moria were some of the most exciting reading I'd ever encountered. Tense. Dangerous. With a glorious epic confrontation on the Bridge of Khazad-Dum. She shrugged. At age 10, I found the Dead Marshes a bit of a slog - nothing but three characters having a conversation in a seemingly endless bog. She, as an adult, tore through them.

Now, I think I understand a bit. When I was a kid, I found the part with just Frodo, Sam, and Gollum boring. Now I find it the deepest and most satisfying part of the book. At age 10, I only cared really about the big set piece battles. Now I know that he spends far more time anticipating battles than he actually does writing about them. Battles bore Tolkien. He avoids writing about them if he can, deliberately with a wink and a nod at the reader, as if to say, "I see you there. There is more to life than violence."

Profound and endlessly entertaining. I've read The Lord of the Rings like 18 times, and each time I've found things that I had missed in prior readings - misunderstandings I had of the character and what they were really saying, and what the writer had really meant by the scene.

But to each their own I suppose. Just know that if you make a habit of making disparaging remarks about the Good Professor, I'll have to put you on ignore.

 

[Mercule]

Wait ... what? BRUCE WAYNE IS BATMAN?

Actually, Batman is a master of disguise. He only masquerades as Bruce Wayne sometimes.

 

[Mercule]

Oh yeah, I'm well aware that I'm in the minority. The annoying thing is, it's a genre that I love and I would have expected to love reading them, especially since they are raved about so much. Then I try reading them, get part way in, then quit because I don't find them entertaining.

You actually aren't alone. I made it through the books once, in high school. I did it more out of a sense of obligation as a huge D&D nerd. I didn't like all the songs and Tom Bombadil just about killed me.

I enjoy studying/discussing his world and world-building process, but his actual writing didn't wow me. Strangely, I was actually enjoying The Simarillion more than the LotR, but then I misplaced the book and never picked up another copy.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

You actually aren't alone.

Not alone by a wider margin than originally expected, even.

I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings repeatedly in my youth, but I didn't really have any other fantasy novels to compare to at the time and all the other things I had available to read were different on so many levels as to not be able to realize that "fantasy" didn't have to mean that exact sort of delivery. Once I came across other fantasy authors (or rather came to the age at which I was allowed to select books without parental supervision), I found myself completely devoid of any further urge to re-read Tolkien's works I'd already read, or to dig into the ones I hadn't.

I still have an appreciation for the particular sorts of effort he put into his tales (the languages, maps, and intense depth of history), but I can't say that his writing engages me.

 

[innerdude]

Profound and endlessly entertaining. I've read The Lord of the Rings like 18 times . . . .

Ah hah!! I have you BEAT! 28 times and counting.......

and each time I've found things that I had missed in prior readings - misunderstandings I had of the character and what they were really saying, and what the writer had really meant by the scene.

Yep. But even I will admit . . . . sometime around reading 23 or 24, I just started skipping over the poetry and songs.

But to each their own I suppose. Just know that if you make a habit of making disparaging remarks about the Good Professor, I'll have to put you on ignore.

Disparage Professor Tolkien at your own risk, indeed. Even after 28 readings of LOTR, the moments where he captures that feeling of heroism, of needing to act bravely and in principled fashion even if no one will ever see it or know, stay with me.

 

[Celebrim]

Ah hah!! I have you BEAT! 28 times and counting.......

I'm only a minor fan by some standards. I've met people with 75+.

Yep. But even I will admit . . . . sometime around reading 23 or 24, I just started skipping over the poetry and songs.

Whereas, I've met people who can recite - and sing - all the poetry and songs from memory. Leveled up in Bard.

Disparage Professor Tolkien at your own risk, indeed. Even after 28 readings of LOTR, the moments where he captures that feeling of heroism, of needing to act bravely and in principled fashion even if no one will ever see it or know, stays with me.

The problem with discovering Tolkien at a young age, is that his well lit worlds make almost everyone else's worlds seem immature by comparison. I enjoy much other fantasy, but I seldom admire it in the same way. There is an intellectual subtlety to his works, that I rarely encounter elsewhere: Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Robert Silverberg, John C. Wright, and occasionally Brandon Sanderson or Ursula K. LeGuin come to mind. I read some lovely stories that I'm quite fond of, most recently 'A Face Like Glass' by Frances Hardinge and 'The Goblin Emperor' by Katherine Addison, and the craftsmanship is just lovely and some scenes are worthy of fist pumping - but I wish that there was more to chew over or that upon being chewed over you found it more delightful even than the first taste.

 

[cbwjm]

You actually aren't alone. I made it through the books once, in high school. I did it more out of a sense of obligation as a huge D&D nerd. I didn't like all the songs and Tom Bombadil just about killed me.

I enjoy studying/discussing his world and world-building process, but his actual writing didn't wow me. Strangely, I was actually enjoying The Simarillion more than the LotR, but then I misplaced the book and never picked up another copy.

I think this describes how I feel about his work fairly accurately. The world he developed is excellent, I just can't get into his novels.

 

[Mercule]

The problem with discovering Tolkien at a young age, is that his well lit worlds make almost everyone else's worlds seem immature by comparison. I enjoy much other fantasy, but I seldom admire it in the same way. There is an intellectual subtlety to his works, that I rarely encounter elsewhere: Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Robert Silverberg, John C. Wright, and occasionally Brandon Sanderson or Ursula K. LeGuin come to mind. I read some lovely stories that I'm quite fond of, most recently 'A Face Like Glass' by Frances Hardinge and 'The Goblin Emperor' by Katherine Addison, and the craftsmanship is just lovely and some scenes are worthy of fist pumping - but I wish that there was more to chew over or that upon being chewed over you found it more delightful even than the first taste.

This, I'll heartily agree with.

Creating my home brew world drove me to research things like history, metallurgy, plate tectonics, climate, linguistics, political science, philosophy, sociology, esoteric religion, and mythology. After 25 years of tinkering, I finally retired it as having gone as far as I'm able to take it. I still feel like a rank amateur next to the Professor. For the most part, I feel like not being able to really enjoy his writing is a fault on my part, more than his. That said, I still don't feel bad about not liking the songs.

 

[MNblockhead]

Besides the rich world he gave us, I have to thank Tolkien for making me interested in reading the old Norse Sagas and Autherian legends. I couldn't get into them when I had to read them for school, but after the LOTR and Hobbit the next thing I read was Tolkien's introduction to Gawain and the Green Knight. Something about reading through LOTRs and then his version of Gawain and the Green Knight helped me see a lot of the old legends and sagas in a new light.

 

[Igwilly]

Well, I already bought the books, so I will read them. I may tell you my experience after that.
Now, on the topic: I used to have a ban on evil-PCs, but right now I'm thinking about removing it. Not sure how that will go, but some players truly wanted to play one; what could possibly go wrong, after all?