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Am I no longer WoTC's target audience?
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<blockquote data-quote="jayoungr" data-source="post: 7904856" data-attributes="member: 6702445"><p>We don't actually know anything about how he looked physically, as there is no description of his appearance from what I can remember without my books handy. But what slight evidence we have suggests he was, in fact, indistinguishable from an elf (there is no mention of Arwen undergoing a physical change when she makes her choice). And he didn't choose to be human--he choose to accept the Doom of Men, which is a related but different thing.</p><p></p><p></p><p>There's no description of his physical appearance either, as far as I can remember.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Thank you--that is my point!</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not disputing the derivation and never have done so in this thread. I'm saying that the result, after D&D has implemented the things it derived from Tolkien, is quite different in flavor from the source. Which you just agreed with above, so I'm not sure why we're "arguing."</p><p></p><p></p><p>Agreed, which is why I said above that you <em>can</em> get a more Tolkien feel from D&D if the DM chooses to steer in that direction. But the DM has to make a conscious effort to do so. You can get an even more Tolkien feel if you change some of the rules, which is the approach <em>Adventures in Middle Earth</em> took.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think that depends heavily on just what you mean when you say "JRRT-type fantasy." I would say "vanilla" D&D lends itself more easily to something tonally like Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, or the dungeon-crawly parts of Conan. You could also do <em>The Hobbit</em> pretty well with "vanilla" D&D, but much of LOTR and virtually all of the Silmarillion (which is basically mythology) would require a deliberate tonal shift on the part of the DM.</p><p></p><p>(That said, I do firmly believe that D&D is more versatile than many give it credit for, and that you <em>can</em> use it for many types of adventures. I'm not one of those "D&D is only good for beating things up and taking their stuff" types.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jayoungr, post: 7904856, member: 6702445"] We don't actually know anything about how he looked physically, as there is no description of his appearance from what I can remember without my books handy. But what slight evidence we have suggests he was, in fact, indistinguishable from an elf (there is no mention of Arwen undergoing a physical change when she makes her choice). And he didn't choose to be human--he choose to accept the Doom of Men, which is a related but different thing. There's no description of his physical appearance either, as far as I can remember. Thank you--that is my point! I'm not disputing the derivation and never have done so in this thread. I'm saying that the result, after D&D has implemented the things it derived from Tolkien, is quite different in flavor from the source. Which you just agreed with above, so I'm not sure why we're "arguing." Agreed, which is why I said above that you [I]can[/I] get a more Tolkien feel from D&D if the DM chooses to steer in that direction. But the DM has to make a conscious effort to do so. You can get an even more Tolkien feel if you change some of the rules, which is the approach [I]Adventures in Middle Earth[/I] took. I think that depends heavily on just what you mean when you say "JRRT-type fantasy." I would say "vanilla" D&D lends itself more easily to something tonally like Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, or the dungeon-crawly parts of Conan. You could also do [I]The Hobbit[/I] pretty well with "vanilla" D&D, but much of LOTR and virtually all of the Silmarillion (which is basically mythology) would require a deliberate tonal shift on the part of the DM. (That said, I do firmly believe that D&D is more versatile than many give it credit for, and that you [I]can[/I] use it for many types of adventures. I'm not one of those "D&D is only good for beating things up and taking their stuff" types.) [/QUOTE]
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