D&D General What is the appeal of Tolkien fantasy races?

tomBitonti said:

Here’s a thought: Elves and dwarves fit several mythic archetypes. For example, as presented as Eloise and morlocks by Wells. And as ancient elder race, say, Atlanteans, or Hyperboreand. One can point to LotR, but that seems to popularize widely used and long standing tropes. LotR is successful, in part, because of the prior existence and widespread familiarity of those tropes.

Be safe, be well,
Tom Bitonti

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Certainly, but we can turn this logic around as well. Primordial and partly- or fully-reptilian non-humans fit several mythic archetypes as well, like the Mesopotamian Annunaki, the Chinese Dragon Kings, the Lamia/Naga, the Avestan Zahhak, Typhon and Echida (the parents of a vast class of Greco-Roman monster beings), Quetzalcoatl, etc.

"Dragon" exists as such a prominent archetype because prominent cultures in every region populated by humans have featured some kind of being that meets the loose standard of reptilian and unquestionably powerful. And several of those cultures have included at least some method by which those beings connect to humans or, quite often, are the progenitors of some group of humans, often royalty or dynasties.

Dragon-people have become as popular as they have because dragon-people are such a well-described and widespread concept, yet one that was (until relatively recently) very poorly-served by the options available.

I'd like to know what other (that is, non-Northern-European) cultures you would say dwarves-as-depicted-in-D&D are linked to, though. One of the common criticisms, as shown in the "what people actually play" thread, is that they're actually pretty limited in the archetypes they touch on, unlike elves (which are consistently much more popular.)

tomBitonti said:

Here’s a thought: Elves and dwarves fit several mythic archetypes. For example, as presented as Eloise and morlocks by Wells. And as ancient elder race, say, Atlanteans, or Hyperboreand. One can point to LotR, but that seems to popularize widely used and long standing tropes. LotR is successful, in part, because of the prior existence and widespread familiarity of those tropes.

Be safe, be well,
Tom Bitonti

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This is a real stretch. Atlanteans are human. Morlocks are degenerate humans - you might draw parallels with duergar, but they are nothing like Tolkien's dwarves. Eloi are humans-turned-into-cattle.

And The Time Machine was an allegory of the British class system only written 125 years ago - that hardly qualifies as "mythic".

Bohandas said:

You've both got to remember that lizard people figure into folklore as well. It's just that it's mostly modern folklore.

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Setting aside dragon-people, who go back much further, the earliest appearance of "lizard-folk" seems to be in the writings of Helena Blavatsky towards the end of the 19th century.

Of course, come the 1960s-70s they had become a common pulp SF trope.

Paul Farquhar said:

Setting aside dragon-people, who go back much further, the earliest appearance of "lizard-folk" seems to be in the writings of Helena Blavatsky towards the end of the 19th century.

Of course, come the 1960s-70s they had become a common pulp SF trope.
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Yeah, reptilian folklore more or less begins at the turn of the 20th century, around the same time that a number of other things (like fairies, ghosts, seances, etc.) started to rise in popularity. But they had become a common trope even earlier than the 60s; by the mid-30s they were a staple of pulp literature, having been used repeatedly by Howard, Burroughs, Smith, and even Lovecraft. And they were definitely influenced by Blavatsky and Theosophy in general.

Paul Farquhar said:

Setting aside dragon-people, who go back much further, the earliest appearance of "lizard-folk" seems to be in the writings of Helena Blavatsky towards the end of the 19th century.

Of course, come the 1960s-70s they had become a common pulp SF trope.
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I said "modern" did I not?

In any case, there is at least one ancient example, the crocodile headed Egyptian god Sobek.

Bohandas said:

I said "modern" did I not?

In any case, there is at least one ancient example, the crocodile headed Egyptian god Sobek.

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There's also the 7000-year-old Sumerian lizardfolk, which they apparently made dozens of figures of for some reason. They're especially weird, because the females are seen nursing babies who are also lizards... a distinct and unusual depiction to say the least.

demonsquidgod said:

I'll admit I'm a new school D&D player/DM. I've never discounted a player idea in osr or 5e, but I still wonder. Dwarves, elves, halflings... and so on.

Why do people chose these races?

To me, elves and dwarves are just humans with some tokrm magic element. Turtle people, and cat people and demon people and dragon people seem like a fun experience. Why playa dwarf and not a mountain dwelling human miner? Why wood elves and not tribal forest dwelling humans? Wealthy human wizards instead of high elves? I mean are humans even relevant in D&D anymore?

Is it a role-playing thing, or just a ability bonus power-up thing? I don't think I've ever ran a group that had a single human in it.

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everyone has different tastes. Elves and dwarves can seem like humans with Tolkien magic element, and can be played as such. But tget are, in fact different cultures and can(and should in my opinion) be played as such. Someone that lives 1000 years has a very different perspective then someone that lives 60 or 80 years.

They aren't just mining humans or tribal forest dwelling hunans.

Conversely, playing something like turtle person, car peopke, dragon people or demon people, in my opinion, seems bizarre and screams lack of creativity, to me( just as playing elves or dwarves screams just humans with token magic to you)

Everyone's perception a and experiences differ

carmachu said:

everyone has different tastes. Elves and dwarves can seem like humans with Tolkien magic element, and can be played as such. But tget are, in fact different cultures and can(and should in my opinion) be played as such. Someone that lives 1000 years has a very different perspective then someone that lives 60 or 80 years.

They aren't just mining humans or tribal forest dwelling hunans.

Conversely, playing something like turtle person, car peopke, dragon people or demon people, in my opinion, seems bizarre and screams lack of creativity, to me( just as playing elves or dwarves screams just humans with token magic to you)

Everyone's perception a and experiences differ

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IMO, the only interesting part of these discussions is why.

What on earth do playing cat people and creativity or lack thereof have to do with eachother, for instance?

doctorbadwolf said:

IMO, the only interesting part of these discussions is why.

What on earth do playing cat people and creativity or lack thereof have to do with eachother, for instance?

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Maybe they're thinking cat people can only be anime catgirls (which, by the way, would undermine their previous point if that's indeed what they're saying)

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Also, personally I think both sides rely too much on human characters. There weren't any human protagonists in The Dark Crystal or Digger or Watership Down or Redwall or My Little Pony Friendship is Magic or The Smurfs (although some of these had human antagonists), and there was only one human in Spellsinger, and out of all the characters in LotR the only memorable human was Aragorn (remember Gandalf and Saruman were Maiar who were only posing as human), and the most interesting parts of Homestuck were the parts about the trolls (plus from a phylogenetic standpoint the kids weren't human anyway)

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Oh, and the anime Seven Deadly Sins. That show doesn't pick up any fully human protagonists until the first season is almost over

I think the major hook for a lot of people would remain simply, LoTR, Dragonlance, or whatever Fantasy you grew up with.

LoTR remains a story of people of different cultures, from all stations or 'class' coming together, supporting each other, to achieve the common good.

Dragonlance, the main Trilogy sitting beside me still (I'm old lol), is much the same. Half-Elf, Elf, Dwarf, Kender, Human(s), with different history, life experience, and so on, coming together and supporting each other (and some betrayal of course) for a common goal.

You don't need to have Dragon people, Turtle people (thats a wtf for me, but I've been not paying attention to 5th for a few years) and so on, to hit on diversity and inclusivity, and depth.

People can enjoy those things, people obviously do enjoy those things, but if you grew up on stories of Elves, and Dwarves, and Humans, you may still find those tropes resonate with you.