So you might say they had more Wisdom? Weird, I feel like I've seen that in D&D somewhere. Beyond that you wouldn't say they were more stealthy, or insightful, or perceptive, or persuasive, or intimidating? You wouldn't say they'd grown physically tougher (Con) or stronger (Str)?
Curious.
No, I wouldn't say that. It is almost like Tolkien was trying to emulate something closer to the loss of innocence when going through war, rather than leveling up to be more like a bad-ass sword swinging hero.
Curious. I wonder why he did that?
A. I would expect any mortal creature to question risk vs. reward, especially if death is one of those risks.
B. The question is irrelevant.
No, it is not irrelevant. The point you are showing where Merry and Pippin grew so much, level up so much... is the same spot I'd expect a level 1 character to end up. And they don't "question" the risk vs reward, they flatly ignore the reward because no amount of money is worth risking their life. That is actually a fairly normal reaction from normal people. Unless pushed by extraordinary circumstances, most people avoid rushing towards dangerous ares where they could be killed by other sentients.
I like way this interpretation casts Galadriel. Like she didn't have any insight or care for what kinds of items might be useful and was just clearing out her junk drawer before booting some unwanted guests out of her treehouse.
"Hide all the good stuff. They're going into Mordor, we're not getting any of it back. Also, we wouldn't want some a-holes in the future to mistake this piece of literature for some kind of D&D game."
Seriously. I love it. It's hilarious.
She didn't send it so they could fight a giant spider. If memory serves me Sam asked, and was given something magical from the angel-elf lady
There is a difference between how magical items are treated in stories like LoTR and things like DnD.
Are retired adventurers always better off after the adventure ends in D&D worlds? I'd say it varies.
It might. But considering that a lot of the adventurers from the Hobbit end up in a bad way, it seems he might have been making a point. (Out of the Thirteen dwarves, 3 of them die before the end of the Hobbit. 3 more die in Moria. 1 gets so fat he has to be carried by others and four more are just never mentioned. So.. two seem to be doing okay.)
A. Tolkien's world is certainly different than your singular example world.
B. If your players didn't have any of those items or only had a few of them, are you saying that you wouldn't be playing D&D any more?
A) Something I've stated multiple times
B) No, but since this seems to happen in most DnD games I think it is fair to say that part of DnD is collecting more magic items than ever appeared in the LoTR books.
Ahhh.. so this is the point where we completely abandon our thematic arguments about "rejection of power" or whatever such nonsense, and we reframe it in terms of setting practicality.
Since we're abandoning the remaining thematic discussion which was previously framed as objectively factual, I can only assume that last paragraph is an opinion.
In which case, I disagree..
and that's fine.
Just because a point has more than one facet, doesn't mean you are abandoning the point entirely. Merry and Pippin end up more like men than hobbits by the end, and likely would not have had the moral character to reject the ring like Sam and Frodo did.
Also, even if we somehow want to get into a discussion on Merry and Pippin, the point has always been more about the wider races than it has about individuals and their personalities.
