Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
What Should Today's Archetypes Be
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9111094" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>LotR is BUT it's not really something people draw their own characters from much, if at all, even for my generation.</p><p></p><p>For starters, I dunno if you noticed, but a lot more women play RPGs now, and Tolkien has approximate zero valid female characters, certainly zero adventurers (and no Arwen doesn't count and Eowyn isn't even close to counting). So that's like 30-50% of your players just right out the door right then. (Honestly LotR is way more of a sausagefest than Le Morte D'Arthur which really an achievement).</p><p></p><p>Second off, LotR doesn't have many characters that match up well with D&D classes. You've basically got... Fighters. That's it. Maybe you could make an extremely stretched case that, technically, Sam is a Paladin. It's cute but it's a stretch. The hobbits don't do Rogue stuff, really. Aragorn doesn't do really any Ranger things. At all. Gandalf doesn't even really do much Wizard stuff. Hell most of the Fighters don't even do Fighter stuff.</p><p></p><p>It's a fun set of movies (yeah I went there) but apart from a small percentage of people going "I'm going to make Legolas" before realizing D&D 5E doesn't support that all that well, that's basically got no impact (Legolas' haircut has had a profound impact on elven haircuts in like every game though I'll tell you that).</p><p></p><p>Compare and contrast with anime or video games or fantasy novels or fantasy TV shows and cartoons, all of which are vastly more diverse not just in male/female/other, or non-white ways, or disabled/able ways, but also in the simple sense that they have more different characters with different abilities, and way more of those characters have the sort of flashy magical powers most D&D characters have, and way more of them do fantastic stuff with their abilities. They also act, look and talk much more like most D&D characters.</p><p></p><p>And why do these characters have those powers and mannerisms and so on? BECAUSE OF D&D. We're on like third generation of a feedback loop here! Almost all of this stuff exists or portrayed the way it is because of D&D. Not because of Tolkien. Because of D&D. And thus it's much more relevant to D&D than a series of novels that basically only influenced D&D in any major way by putting certain races into the game. And they've been there for decades now, so their origin is almost irrelevant. They're D&D races.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 9111094, member: 18"] LotR is BUT it's not really something people draw their own characters from much, if at all, even for my generation. For starters, I dunno if you noticed, but a lot more women play RPGs now, and Tolkien has approximate zero valid female characters, certainly zero adventurers (and no Arwen doesn't count and Eowyn isn't even close to counting). So that's like 30-50% of your players just right out the door right then. (Honestly LotR is way more of a sausagefest than Le Morte D'Arthur which really an achievement). Second off, LotR doesn't have many characters that match up well with D&D classes. You've basically got... Fighters. That's it. Maybe you could make an extremely stretched case that, technically, Sam is a Paladin. It's cute but it's a stretch. The hobbits don't do Rogue stuff, really. Aragorn doesn't do really any Ranger things. At all. Gandalf doesn't even really do much Wizard stuff. Hell most of the Fighters don't even do Fighter stuff. It's a fun set of movies (yeah I went there) but apart from a small percentage of people going "I'm going to make Legolas" before realizing D&D 5E doesn't support that all that well, that's basically got no impact (Legolas' haircut has had a profound impact on elven haircuts in like every game though I'll tell you that). Compare and contrast with anime or video games or fantasy novels or fantasy TV shows and cartoons, all of which are vastly more diverse not just in male/female/other, or non-white ways, or disabled/able ways, but also in the simple sense that they have more different characters with different abilities, and way more of those characters have the sort of flashy magical powers most D&D characters have, and way more of them do fantastic stuff with their abilities. They also act, look and talk much more like most D&D characters. And why do these characters have those powers and mannerisms and so on? BECAUSE OF D&D. We're on like third generation of a feedback loop here! Almost all of this stuff exists or portrayed the way it is because of D&D. Not because of Tolkien. Because of D&D. And thus it's much more relevant to D&D than a series of novels that basically only influenced D&D in any major way by putting certain races into the game. And they've been there for decades now, so their origin is almost irrelevant. They're D&D races. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
What Should Today's Archetypes Be
Top