NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8081112" data-attributes="member: 7023840">[USER=21169]@Doug McCrae[/USER]Great post at #477, although it seems to tie in more to the issue of whether or not D&D is "humanocentric."That said, I would make the following notes/additions/quibbles with some of your comments:1. The one main issue I have with your analysis is your over-reliance on Tolkien. Now, without reviving an age-old and interminable debate, I think the following two things can be true:a. Gygax borrowed more from Tolkien for various reasons than he liked to admit, often to the point of later denying the obvious.b. Gygax really did not like Tolkien in comparison to his favorite writers.The reason that this is important is because while we see the roots of some things in D&D that relied on Tolkien, all the way back to the likely borrowing of aspects of another person's wargame for Pelennor Fields for the original Chainmail Fantasy supplement, it is also true that (1) Gygax did not model Greyhawk after LoTR, (2) Gygax was consistent about the human-centered nature of early D&D and Greyhawk, and (3) given the publication date of Greyhawk and the issues with the Tolkien estate, any possible continuing resemblance should be considered extremely suspect.2. As detailed in the other thread, it is possible to read the population numbers in different ways (and this is before getting into the age-old debate about whether the land/population numbers in the 1983 and earlier editions are a mistaken, a happy accident, or deliberate in terms of sparseness). Mortellan has a whole excellent analysis of the elven populations of Greyhawk that is linked to.[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.enworld.org/threads/moar-greyhawk-anthropocentrism-and-humanity-in-greyhawk.674359/[/URL]The issue, again, is that you can present the numbers in multiple ways. For example, while I'd have to do the math out, my prior check on this indicates that the entire population of all the demi-humans in Greyhawk that we can enumerate, or come close to it, is far less than the the human population of just the Great Kingdom. There are scant demi-humans, and they are bit players that work with humans for their mutual interests.3. The issue with the humanoids is interesting, and has to be seen in the context of the time (IMO). At the time, demi-humans (NPCs) = good, humanoids = evil. The dwindling numbers of demi-humans (after the waves of human migration) and the more recent establishment of entire areas overrun by humanoids (as opposed to raiding bands, or scattered areas in the borders) is indicative of the decay and gradual collapse of the human civilizations. Even looking at the map, it becomes obvious; there is a "core" in the center; to the northeast are the barbarians; to the east is the corrupt and collapsing Great Kingdom; to the Southeast are the nazi racist monks; to the north you find the Horned Society, Iuz, and Blackmoor; the west is hemmed in by the Sea of Dust and the remnants of the Baklun empire; and the sourthwest is the slavers and the Amedio Jungle.Overall, you could read this in a Tolkien-esque way. But assuming this was not written in such a manner, it seems more (reading the history) that the humans swept through, the dwindling numbers of demi-humans kept to themselves, and as humanoids became more common and more of a threat, the demi-humans made some mutually-beneficial alliances with the humans. Unfortunately, while those had been successul (Hateful Wars, Emridy Meadows), increasingly the humanoids and evil have been getting the upper hand. Given the abbreviated chronology in which every event from 479 on bodes increasingly poorly, I think that's a more likely reading. But that's me. I think reading Greyhawk as "Tolkien-esque" isn't correct, although it's fine to do.EDIT: I apologize if this is unclear, but I really did enjoy reading your post and appreciated the work you put into it. A lot of times, a conversation can be like people discussing whether a glass is half full, or half empty, or, to use a more recent example, does the dress look blue or gold. I think we can agree on many of the base facts, and still reach disparate conclusions given the frame we are using and the assumptions that go into it; even simple things like, "How prevalent are the demi-humans, compared to humans, with the numbers we are given? What constitutes "a lot" in the context of this campaign?"</blockquote>

Verification