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Never played it, but I heard Solasta is good. https://www.solasta-game.com/

Tolkien is clearly a “base” literature informing our view of D&D and similar RPGs, but a better example of creatures that seem to have a biological basis for their behaviour and way of thinking might be the creatures from Ringworld (Pierson’s Puppeteers, Kzin and others). The biological...

Sure, but according to Tolkien there’s nothing biological to it:

For sure, though this argues against the notion of “racial” resistance or vulnerability.

It’s an interesting point, but IMO this is literary criticism and I see limited value in using any of this to set the statistics or traits in an RPG.

We don’t know the ring could turn either Galdalf or Galadriel, though they each feared that would be the result. If killing one’s friend within minutes of coming near the ring isn’t immediate corruption, then you have I have fundamental differences in our definition of corruption that makes...

You don’t consider Smeagol to have been corrupted immediately? Anyway, you can interpret what you have read however you see fit - according to the totality of Tolkien’s world, they are basically the same, aside from being smaller and larger.

Not according to Tolkien’s legendarium- they are a type of human and have no special resistance.

I’d say any essentially immortal group (i.e. the elves) would have a very different outlook on life compared to mortal beings. Might different creatures not look on the perspectives of others and assign morality to these tendencies?

I suppose none of it is undeniable, the the alternative is the ‘humans with funny ears’ model.

I don’t disagree, but the vast majority of players/creators are not experts in fish (or insects, or birds). For good or bad, I would still expect most of us to base our RPG ideas on a simplistic (read: inaccurate) view of the real world biology of such creatures. To your second point, why...

I agree, but that’s the issue, IMO. Making them act differently is left up to the player, which means that it will vary from group to group and player to player. Without guidelines written in the game itself there will be no way to ensure even a basic consistency. Putting aside the physical...

Interesting, but when I look at age, I think of different things. I cannot imagine that longevity would not change how you think of the world.

This, to me, is the real problem. Modern humans have no real world experience with sentient creatures with radically different physical or mental characteristics. Therefore, anytime we try to consider how halflings vs elves vs goliaths vs thri-kreen would be physically different, and how we...

Perhaps the best way to look at it is that TSR developed more and more interesting, imaginative games through the 80s and 90s despite the executive structure of the company.

Sigil is not dead, it just smells funny.

I’d have to say three books: All-time classic. Even if I never used it much, the high Gygaxian prose is incredible. This might be my favourite. I played 2e through high school and Uni. I was at the age that when I bought this I sat and read it cover-to-cover. This is another classic...