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Yes, it's definitely got aspects of that. LotR also has a lot of horror aspects, primarily brought in via Tolkien's World War I experiences. And Middle Earth is in a lot of ways a post-apocalyptic world.

I agree with your take. Also, while published in the '50s, at least in the USA where TTRPGs were primarily invented, LotR didn't really take off until the '60s around the same time as other things that started the broader genre started, e.g., renfaires. The classic Appendix N fantasy that Gygax...

Really good analogy! Absolutely. And there are people who explicitly avoid Tolkien type worlds or tropes. They might well like Tolkien or some other big influence but want out from under their shadows. I know I have done that in part when I crafted my own campaign worlds. For example, one is a...

The Deities & Demigods copyright violations did more to keep those titles alive than nearly anything that could have been done.

When I first got into D&D I tried to figure out how to shoehorn Tolkien into it but pretty rapidly figured out that that wasn't actually possible or even worth it.

I first read The Hobbit in 1979 and attempted Lord of the Rings in 1980. I was quite young... 3rd grade. I made it through The Hobbit but LotR eluded me for a few more years. I've read the latter about every decade since then and gotten different things from it each time. I got Moldvay Basic D&D...

Chargen in Champions is... special. It is definitely worth having someone who really understands the system to do that.

Absolutely true. The locked action economy of a lot of modern games (esp. 5E) have some benefits but they sure can prevent actions like exactly what you mentioned... "it's time to run, comrades!"

Mike "Sly Fourish" Shea recently posted a video on this kind of thing. I tried using "side initiative" for a while to allow for that.

100%. Lots of things that make sense in the secondary reality don't fit in with the fact that there are people sitting around a table. Retreats and friendly fire are good examples.

May be. The problem I have with the way a lot of games have come to be written is that there's often 0 reason to do anything but the optimal thing, which is, IMO, boring. This is particularly true for PCs that are operating under a specialization mechanic that is very specific, such as one...

Some of this is just how 3.X implemented old skool "you need to do your research and be prepared for your foes", something that in games like D&D have existed since way back. I think 3.X just took it to its logical extreme point. A lot of RPGs also make running essentially impossible due to the...

Main reason is I want the players to have to think and change things up and not just attack in exactly the same way over and over again. Specialization is IMO one of the things that has made for samey characters, particularly because there's usually a few dominant options that everyone takes...

Yeah, that's how 1E worked. There were a number of careers that were dead ends with the anticipation that you'd move on but a number did have a natural progression. Seaman to Mate to Captain is a good example. Exactly how you wanted to play it was up to the GM, of course. I tended to like the...

These are very good points. I had 0 experience with WFB when I first encountered WHFRP1E and have never played it, so I wasn't jonesing for a guy riding a griffin.

The Golf Bag is definitely worse for sure but there's a sameyness that seems to happen especially when PCs end up being overspecialized in the same thing. Getting people to push other buttons besides the same default attack and to push the players out of their obvious comfort zones is worthwhile...

Yup, minis, like cards, are a license to print money, and are what keeps most stores in business.

I agree that 3.X's damage reduction got silly, but what frequently happens is that players just use the exact same weapon over and over without incentive to change it up. So there's a balance that can be tricky to strike.

This is a good point. In my 5E-ized Desert of Desolation campaign, I made undead and certain other foes vulnerable to Radiant. However, the divine-touched characters are vulnerable to Necrotic. This means that against certain foe types, the PCs both fear AND clean up against them, whereas more...

Some not totally connected thoughts about this. There's a good bit of a balancing act going on. A game that's only supposed to be run one or a few times should be simple to get into and pick up. However, if you want to run over the course of a campaign there needs to be some room for growth...