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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreyLord" data-source="post: 8809653" data-attributes="member: 4348">I have an original, but the argument against the Original D&D elves being based on Tolkien is being made in bad faith.#1 - Tolkien never specifies that elves jump out of their mothers fully formed and able to do great deeds, in fact, from the stories presented it seems MANY of them were weaker than Sam and died to their first Orc in battle.#2 - The named Elves are normally the GREAT ones amongst the Elves.  The ones that stand out already.  Most of these were already hundreds of years old at a minimum, meaning that in levelling terms, we are talking about 11th level or higher Magic-Users (probably max levelled Fighter/Magic-users...or something like 100/11 Thief/Magic-users...etc).  In 5th edition, they'd probably be something like 20th level characters with around 100 epic boons.  The named elves in history are basically your mega heroes already.  They've been around a LONG time.#3 - Comparing Ultra High level characters (and with the above elves, in 5e, that means they probably also have all their stats at 30, meaning you can't even GET their stats as a starting character...even as an Elf) with your basic starting character in D&D is nonsense.#4 - And yet, that's what the argument is trying to argue in relation to D&D elves not being based on Tolkien.  Granted, I don't feel 5e elves are like that in any way, but Gygax expressed some rather distinct idea on human central D&D and why Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and Gnomes were different.  Seeing how many of the other things were based on Tolkien (even if Gygax claimed otherwise...Hobbits don't just pop up as a random name out of nowhere), including the animosity between Elves and Dwarves (just for starters...that's basically directly found from Tolkien)...It should be obvious that originally the D&D elves WERE highly inspired by the Tolkien elves (also a reason why the Elves and Dwarves are not 1 inch tall or less than 2 feet, because they weren't based on the traditional fairy tale elves).Today, obviously, they are played as funny looking humans, but that wasn't the original intent...IMO.  It started changing as soon as people started playing the game, and it's gone the entire way that now when people are playing Orcs they see them as a parallel as being discriminated against because to them...Orcs are just people who look different rather than the Tolkien type origins (or even the mythical origins, though that has more that Orcs are the bodies of the dead) they came from.Which means I can agree 5e elves are nothing like Tolkien, but originally...definately based on Tolkien Elves in OD&D, BX, BECMI, AD&D, and to a lesser degree...AD&D 2e.</blockquote>

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