I'm frankly of the opinion the Tolkein approach to worldbuilding is more of an anomalous success than a replicable method
Certainly not replicable by most people.
you of all people should be able to appreciate that a TTRPG has a different set of goals than a novel. Structural and thematic consistency are in the service of something, that something usually being the entertainment of the players.
I would replace "players with
participants. But I don't think that what is played around with are story elements linked by logical consistency. Eg when I've GMed a Middle Earth game it was tropes and related themes that I tried to pick up on.
Earlier today I was re-reading a terrific
rpg.net review of Prince Valiant, and it made this interesting point:
PV is based on graphic fiction that was created to be read, not as data for an rpg setting. It uses that data to provide the setting materials for the game, not as a substitute for the original fictional form. PV knows that a fiction book is a fiction book and that a game book is a game book. It does not try to be both. The setting materials are there to allow the players to understand and develop the context of their game and to highlight the way one can play in that context with the rules the book provides. . . .
there’s a lot of depth in this game. Just look at how carefully the game entities have been chosen, how well they are substantiated with examples taken from the novels, how rich and varied are the alternatives covered. . . .
Greg Stafford, in his rules design effort, never lost its focus on the setting. This is not a game where we have a setting and a system tossed together. The designer started by getting immersed in the setting (as presented in Hal Foster’s fiction) and attempted to abstract the critical concepts that underline that setting and to conceive a system based on those concepts. All of this wrapped in a faultless package that was designed to provide what any game book should aim for: A tool for role-playing.
I like this account of the relationship between setting, as something created outside the RPG context, and RPGing. Between
setting and
toys lies the development of a system based on the relevant concepts. In the case of JRRT, these are predominantly moral, religious and similar concepts.