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Jeremy Crawford Discusses Details on Custom Origins
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8111235" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>The turn of phrase "similar men" could easily be read as implying humanity specifically. Tolkien often did that. Likewise, even leaving aside that the book is predicated on a humanocentric basis (though as noted before, that's partially due to the focus on medieval battles for most of it), I'll reiterate that the elves and dwarves entries note particular characteristics they have, but which make no mention of applying those to the man-to-man rules.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, it might have been, but at this point it's hard to say. There were certainly cases of the line between PCs and NPCs being somewhat porous in the early days, though my best examples of that tend to be from Gary's games; if I recall correctly, Quij was an NPC henchman of Robilar's, who was Rob Kuntz's character. It's really the old "who plays the henchmen, the DM or the PC they follow" bit, even if the rules for reaction adjustments and loyalty modifiers made it sound more like the DM.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Right, but it's hard to deny that the foreword to the original 1974 boxed set (Appendix N was from the 1979 DMG) making mention of several authors suggests that they have a place of prominence with regard to influence on the game. Tolkien apparently being not one of them; that's not to say that he doesn't have any influence - he clearly does! - but not so much as to say he occupies a place of primacy.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Which is sort of the point. You identified six that are explicitly Tolkien's out of a list of over twenty; as you note here, Tolkien doesn't really have that many unique creatures to contribute, and quite a few of the ones that appear in his works appear in quite a few other places. It doesn't seem controversial to say that, insofar as the monstrous entries go, he didn't add too much overall.</p><p></p><p>Again, that largely relies on the interpretation that Tolkien's influence can be felt with anything that he used, even if it was for creatures that are also found elsewhere, which I think is listing a bit too far in terms of what can be credited to him. If particular monsters could conceivably come from another source, I suspect they would have, even if a few details might have been different.</p><p></p><p>One thing to keep in mind is that this list expands by a large margin when OD&D proper comes out in 1974, the list of monsters expands dramatically, further reducing the appearance that Tolkien was a large influence on the game itself:</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/cROBVGG.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/4i9ZLsx.jpeg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>I suspect this list would have a lot more Barsoom creatures on it as well, except that TSR released <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriors_of_Mars_(game)" target="_blank">Warriors of Mars</a> right after Dungeons & Dragons, and while I don't know for sure how much overlap there was with regards to the rules, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a lot, considering that, as <a href="https://blogofholding.com/?p=4121" target="_blank">noted elsewhere</a>, "The original D&D books are rich with Martian references. The wandering monster tables contain references to the following monsters, all natives of Burroughs’ Barsoom: Thark, Thoat, Calot, White Ape, Orluk, Sith, Darseen, Apt, Banth, Red Martian, Black Martian, White Martian, and Yellow Martian." That's over a dozen monsters right there.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Thanks!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8111235, member: 8461"] The turn of phrase "similar men" could easily be read as implying humanity specifically. Tolkien often did that. Likewise, even leaving aside that the book is predicated on a humanocentric basis (though as noted before, that's partially due to the focus on medieval battles for most of it), I'll reiterate that the elves and dwarves entries note particular characteristics they have, but which make no mention of applying those to the man-to-man rules. Well, it might have been, but at this point it's hard to say. There were certainly cases of the line between PCs and NPCs being somewhat porous in the early days, though my best examples of that tend to be from Gary's games; if I recall correctly, Quij was an NPC henchman of Robilar's, who was Rob Kuntz's character. It's really the old "who plays the henchmen, the DM or the PC they follow" bit, even if the rules for reaction adjustments and loyalty modifiers made it sound more like the DM. Right, but it's hard to deny that the foreword to the original 1974 boxed set (Appendix N was from the 1979 DMG) making mention of several authors suggests that they have a place of prominence with regard to influence on the game. Tolkien apparently being not one of them; that's not to say that he doesn't have any influence - he clearly does! - but not so much as to say he occupies a place of primacy. Which is sort of the point. You identified six that are explicitly Tolkien's out of a list of over twenty; as you note here, Tolkien doesn't really have that many unique creatures to contribute, and quite a few of the ones that appear in his works appear in quite a few other places. It doesn't seem controversial to say that, insofar as the monstrous entries go, he didn't add too much overall. Again, that largely relies on the interpretation that Tolkien's influence can be felt with anything that he used, even if it was for creatures that are also found elsewhere, which I think is listing a bit too far in terms of what can be credited to him. If particular monsters could conceivably come from another source, I suspect they would have, even if a few details might have been different. One thing to keep in mind is that this list expands by a large margin when OD&D proper comes out in 1974, the list of monsters expands dramatically, further reducing the appearance that Tolkien was a large influence on the game itself: [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/cROBVGG.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/4i9ZLsx.jpeg[/IMG] I suspect this list would have a lot more Barsoom creatures on it as well, except that TSR released [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriors_of_Mars_(game)]Warriors of Mars[/url] right after Dungeons & Dragons, and while I don't know for sure how much overlap there was with regards to the rules, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a lot, considering that, as [url=https://blogofholding.com/?p=4121]noted elsewhere[/url], "The original D&D books are rich with Martian references. The wandering monster tables contain references to the following monsters, all natives of Burroughs’ Barsoom: Thark, Thoat, Calot, White Ape, Orluk, Sith, Darseen, Apt, Banth, Red Martian, Black Martian, White Martian, and Yellow Martian." That's over a dozen monsters right there. Thanks! [/QUOTE]
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