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<blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 5451917" data-attributes="member: 92511">Victim, I think the fact that Tolkien created the &quot;fantasy races&quot; of elves, dwarves and halflings/hobbits...even &quot;orcs&quot;...really...as far as we know/knew them in early D&amp;D, cannot be argued.As far as anyone's &quot;familiar&quot; being the same as anyone elses...no, of course that's not possible. But the fantasy genre in terms of fantasy role-playing games DOES have a starting point and a history.Before the brilliance that is the LotR, fantasy literature had no specific idea of these peoples as a culture or their specific appearance....Yes, yes, dwarves existed in Norse mythology...Elves existed (in multiple forms) in Celtic/Gaelic/Britanic...but it seems to be an inarguable fact that the &quot;Tolkien&quot; races are the races of, at least, the original (or Gygaxian, if you like) D&amp;D fantasy genre. If you play in some other fantasy game that is outside of D&amp;D, more power to ya. And you very well may be correct. But I hazard to propose that no FRPG player is not familiar with the Tolkien-based classic races.If you have &quot;animal&quot; characters as opposed to elves/dwarves/gnomes/halflings...I truly suspect that they probably are broken into a Tolkienesque racial mindframe...probably without your notice. i.e. Elves=Anthropomorphic forest-dwelling Deer, Dwavres=Anthropomorphic rock-digging Badgers, Gnomes=Anthropomophic warren-building Rabbits, Hobbits/Halflings=Anthropomorphic happy-countryfolk...I dunno...Squirrels? Mice?The races of the fantasy genre were, in essence, created by J.R.R. Other races introduced to be &quot;different&quot;...are just faded or shaded copies of the originals.And I, personally, as a FRPG fan, player and game master, am fine with that.--Steel Dragons</blockquote>

[QUOTE="steeldragons, post: 5451917, member: 92511"] Victim, I think the fact that Tolkien created the "fantasy races" of elves, dwarves and halflings/hobbits...even "orcs"...really...as far as we know/knew them in early D&D, cannot be argued. As far as anyone's "familiar" being the same as anyone elses...no, of course that's not possible. But the fantasy genre in terms of fantasy role-playing games DOES have a starting point and a history. Before the brilliance that is the LotR, fantasy literature had no specific idea of these peoples as a culture or their specific appearance....Yes, yes, dwarves existed in Norse mythology...Elves existed (in multiple forms) in Celtic/Gaelic/Britanic...but it seems to be an inarguable fact that the "Tolkien" races are the races of, at least, the original (or Gygaxian, if you like) D&D fantasy genre. If you play in some other fantasy game that is outside of D&D, more power to ya. And you very well may be correct. But I hazard to propose that no FRPG player is not familiar with the Tolkien-based classic races. If you have "animal" characters as opposed to elves/dwarves/gnomes/halflings...I truly suspect that they probably are broken into a Tolkienesque racial mindframe...probably without your notice. i.e. Elves=Anthropomorphic forest-dwelling Deer, Dwavres=Anthropomorphic rock-digging Badgers, Gnomes=Anthropomophic warren-building Rabbits, Hobbits/Halflings=Anthropomorphic happy-countryfolk...I dunno...Squirrels? Mice? The races of the fantasy genre were, in essence, created by J.R.R. Other races introduced to be "different"...are just faded or shaded copies of the originals. And I, personally, as a FRPG fan, player and game master, am fine with that. --Steel Dragons [/QUOTE]

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