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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8110726" data-attributes="member: 8461">"non-demi-god"? I hate to break it to you, but <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/was-gandalf-just-a-5th-level-magic-user.663672/" target="_blank">Gandalf was a 5th-level magic-user</a>.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />You have the basic idea right, though I'm not sure why you're bringing that up here. In my copy (3rd Edition, 8th+ printing), there are the medieval warfare rules, followed by the brief man-to-man rules (I misrembered the name), followed by the fantasy supplement. However, in the fantasy supplement's description of heroes and super-heroes, it talks about using them as individuals, which it doesn't do for elves, dwarves, or halflings.It's likewise described in terms of individual ability. Specifically:"They are the last figure in a unit that will be killed by regular missile fire of [sic] melee, but they may be attacked individually by enemy troops of like type (such as other Hero-types) or creatures shown on the Fantasy Combat Table. Heroes (and Anti-Heroes) may act independent of their command in order to combat some other fantastic character."Which includes the notes on independent action.As units, not as individuals. That's not an unimportant distinction to make.Those distinctions don't show up in my copy of Chainmail, and aren't mentioned in the distinctions made between printings over on <a href="https://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/chainmail.html" target="_blank">the Acaeum</a>, which does make note of changes between "hobbits" and "halflings" between printings.Presuming that you're referring to <a href="https://boggswood.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-timeline-from-braunstein-to-blackmoor.html" target="_blank">this timeline</a>, it's worth noting that even if we overlook the large disclaimer that it's reconstructed from the memory of one person decades later, it also doesn't say when fantasy races as PCs were introduced. So we can't use it to say for certain that Tolkien-esque demihumans were actually an early part of the game, which if I recall correctly was your assertion.I'm not sure I follow what you're suggesting here. Likewise, the answer to that question would likely be taken to be different today from several decades ago, where differences between genres in general and games in particular (e.g. "edition wars") would be very different from how they were perceived then. There's a reason why no one cared very much when the AD&D Monster Manual came out a year before the Player's Handbook. Today that wouldn't be feasible.There's also no evidence to say that it succeeded because of them. Remember, T&T had those races and more, and it didn't do as well as D&D.The issue of Gygax and Arneson dueling over the importance of Chainmail to D&D's formation has nothing to do with the presence/absence of particular fantasy races, so popular or not we can dispense with the idea of that being a salient point of comparison. I'll mention again that early games did have things that D&D lacked - T&T let you play as a fairy - and didn't overtake it.It's neither. On the contrary, it's far more misleading to suggest that purported later additions (please note again that you've apparently referenced a timeline that says nothing about fantasy races in Blackmoor as support) were somehow integral despite not being part of the game at the beginning.First, it's important to note that citing a particular post doesn't lend your point any more credence unless it actually establishes something, which isn't the case here. Rather, you're trying to insert a disconnect where there isn't any with regards to level limits. In terms of level limits establishing the overall inconsequence of fantas races compared to humans, they do (nor are they the only thing that does). That doesn't mean you couldn't keep playing such a character.You're misinterpreting what's there. The issue of a call-out doesn't establishing particular notability, which is why the particular aspects that you're focusing on (i.e. elves, dwarves, and halflings) aren't singled out for man-to-man play the way heroes and super-heroes are. Having them as units doesn't make them any more "central" than it does for sprites or chimerea [sic] or elementals, all of which are also listed. To suggest that barely a half-dozen or so creatures out of a larger list makes them "central" to the game strikes me as disingenuous. (And of course, this is presuming that we continue with the underlying assumption that the elves and dwarves <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/q-a-with-gary-gygax.22566/page-90#post-1332107" target="_blank">are from Tolkien at all</a>. Notice that Gary can attribute the halflings to Tolkien, so there's no real reason for him to be less than honest regarding the other two races.)On the contrary, the "other side" looks at the totality of the game and finds that there simply isn't very much Tolkien influence there, which you've helped highlight here.</blockquote>

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