Ilbranteloth
Explorer
Yeah, no. We are not, in any way, obligated to give a damn about Tolkien while playing games, or writing fantasy, for that matter. The origins of a thing are useful for understanding it, but they are absolutely not something to abide by, or feel beholden to when making new things.
And if you honestly don't think that the fact (yes, fact) that people tend to get set in their ways and resist change as a default position, I can't imagine what world you live in, but it isn't this one. Traditionalism is a distressingly common mindset, and it leads people to assume a "no change without very compelling reasons" mentality, which is strictly a bad thing.
And pretty much no one thinks that change is always good, but progress is, in a cultural/social context, literally positive change, in a "forward" direction. Ie, toward egalitarianism, fairness, and a better world in general. In tech, progress is change that improves the technology in some way.
So, while one can imagine progress (which is a distinct term from change) that leads to bad things, in general progress is better than stagnation.
also, nearly every time someone has had an example of "bad progress", in my experience, it's been some nonsense about the soviet union, that actually has nothing at all to do with progress, and is just radical change, usually going backward, or claiming progress while doing pretty much what the old boss did with a new paint job. Well, and there's the people who think that segregation was good and the nation has gone downhill since women got the vote, but I just assume no one on here is in that camp.
and to be clear, I love JRRT. I've read everything published while he was alive (and every word of every appendix contained therein) and a lot of what Chris has published, from the trilogy and the Hobbit, to the Silmarillion, to everything in the Reader, his Beowulf, etc. I've written fanfic, played plenty of game sessions in Arda, between homebrewed dnd and more recently the One Ring rpg by cubicle 7. I know who the Noldor are and where Arnor was, and I wish my mind was retentive enough to challenge Stephen Colbert on the subject.
But none of that love and respect for the man and his work, and the fact he essentially invented what we now think of as fantasy fiction, means that I'm beholden to him when telling fantasy stories.
Totally agree. And some of the most interesting fantasy has been, not really anti-Tolkien, but entirely different. And I think that would make for a really incredible campaign too. It's just that I've invested a lot, and have a much more limited amount of time, that I want to see through what I've started.
On the other hand for those of us that choose to be more traditionalist might choose it for other reasons. Like, we really like it and think there are still really creative and 'progressive' things to do within the stories. It's kind of like music, to many 'pop' is a dirty word. But for some, the challenge of making a statement in about 3 minutes and be fresh and new is a worthy exercise.
I embrace change and incorporate a lot of new ideas and things from many sources, although they tend to be more story elements than world-changing events like Returned Abeir. But part of embracing change and progress also involves rejecting other ideas, whether they are old and/or traditional or new, and usually it's a combination of the two.
Ilbranteloth