Tolkien Killed My Homebrew

[Snoweel]

Hey Nemm, PC and TB! Good to see some familiar faces still around here. I've actually been lurking for a couple of weeks and I'll definitely be around until my next deployment (mid-next year). Nemm, I'm impressed with how big Aquerra's become. Well done.

First off, I think the question is, do you want a game setting, or do you want an original fantasy novel?

Don't get me wrong, while I enjoy reading D&D books I might never use, fantasy fiction is totally not my cup of tea. Since the age of about 15 I've found it impossible to care about the characters.

Thanks everyone for your input. I think the simple fix for me is to just convert the dominant culture's flavour back to Medieval/Renaissance Europe, which is just a matter of changing some names and descriptive text.

And Jeff, I love your sig.

 

[Turanil]

There's a pretty nifty little set of rules called Mazes & Minotaurs

Thanks for the link. This is a neat lite-rpg, and moreover free for download!

 

[Melan]

pawsplay's advice is sound. I would add that basing the social model of your campaign on a mixture of
- ancient Mediterranean cultures under the aegis of Hellenism,
- the American Wild West, and
- modern societies
gives you a more or less internally consistent, non-Tolkienesque, and what is more, very gameable milieu. The first provides a modicum of non-Mediaeval European flavour that most players still recognise, plus Hellenism was the first period of "globalisation" where travelling great distances and interacting with different cultures was becoming something people did on a regular basis. The second is self explanatory, as D&D contains numerous themes derived from westerns (it is no surprise Boot Hill followed it so soon). The third provides a value system modern players can identify with (pragmatism and rampant materialism, mostly, but also some of those secular liberal values). Of course, how much of each to mix into the brew is up to you, but I have found it a great combination. In a way, it seems to be custom-taylored to D&D's specific feel.

 

[Ian the Mad]

Snoweel! And Ian the Mad posted like two days ago. Holy craponnastick, it's like 2002 all over again...

Your eyes are sharp like knives, sir. I've been lurking for years now, just haven't felt the urge to post anything aside from the odd spot of praise in a story hour here or there. Less time for the internet these days and all that.

 

[Monkey King]

Be a Magpie

I dunno, the Tolkien wellspring has never bothered me that much, since old JRR also borrowed liberally from those who went before. In his case, of course, that meant the Norse and the Eddas and Sir Gawain and so forth, but there's a reason it's called "the fantasy tradition" in literature.

Elves have a long history in folklore, the dwarves of the Nibelungenleid are recognizably Tolkien's dwarves, and the trolls are all over Scandinavian and English folklore. So, it ain't all new. People use those elements because they have a history and a powerful resonance in other stories. Why not use that history and those resonances for your own purposes?

That said, D&D has a well-established mythology and cosmology as well, and that never seems to bother people (the drow backstory, the planar cosmology, and even the generic pantheon all crop up pretty often).

Why not just say "Sure, JRR was a massive influence on D&D, but I'm still using the best bits for my own homebrew?" Give the players what they want, and then subvert it enough to entertain yourself.

 

[Agent Oracle]

I realized i couldn't escape the overshadowing fiction of the authors that I had read, so instead, I took it and RAN.

Fallow, my homebrew world, Has Ziggurat-building dwarves (they don't live under mountains, they build new ones) who shave off all their body hair and worship the god of the sun (I kept the standard D&D cosmology). They have a very active forms of sporting entertainment, including variant forms of football and soccer.

Halflings are merchants of every sort imaginable. Willing to go to great distances to aquire rare goods and sell them for healthy profits. Their supply networks keep half the continent fed and in timber, and the other half supplied with textiles and metals.

I couldn't escape the elven connection to nature, so i toyed around with it a bit. Wound up with elves that are lumberjacks. Kinda Canadian. Very polite and quiet, not at all prone to asking for independence until a hundred years after everyone else has it. (And i know i'm gonna catch heat from the Canadians on this board for saying that)

Gnomes... Well, i haven't really messed around with them that much. Gnomish tradition dictates that if two gnomes love each other very much, they BUY each other from their parents. Both Husband and wife have a dowry, and they have to fork it over to the parents of their SO at the wedding. Lots of drama from that.

 

[airwalkrr]

In my homebrew setting, the whole world is tainted by the ancient invasion of a Demon-King and his progeny who spread throughout the world. His children are the progenitors of all monster races today and some say the very cause of evil in the world. To make matters worse, although he is "dead," his children keep trying to resurrect him, which makes for all kinds of interesting adventures.

It is a pretty typical D&D setting, but I have to admit an affinity for some Tolkienish elements myself. Elves live on a far-off continent. Dwarves live under the mountains. Halflings are insular and not prone to adventuring. Some powerful celestials were sent to aid the world when the Demon-King arrived. I suppose it is hard to throw off Tolkien's shackles completely. You have to give the man credit.

 

[Klaus]

If you think every Medieval-Europe-styled fantasy world is too Tolkienesque, pick up a Lankhmar book by Fritz Leiber. Not the least bit Tolkienesque, and as influential to D&D as JRRT.

 

[DragonLancer]

I, too, balked at the idea of D&D as the Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game.

So, I just tossed out anything that resembled Middle Earth.

I'll never understand this. I'm no big fan of Middle-Earth, but whats the problem with D&D and the game in general having a resemblence? Surely, it makes no differenc whats so ever?

 

[Aeric]

I'll never understand this. I'm no big fan of Middle-Earth, but whats the problem with D&D and the game in general having a resemblence? Surely, it makes no differenc whats so ever?

I actually like Middle-Earth and would probably enjoy playing a game that was set there. I'm just an all-or-nothing type of person. Orcs and halflings have always felt like cheap knockoffs of the real thing to me. If you look at a lot of the third-party settings (and even some of TSR's own settings--Birthright, Dragonlance), the first thing that goes is the orc and the second thing that goes is the halfling. Even the publishers knew it was a ripoff cut and pasted into the D&D world.

I never liked talking, magic-using dragons on principle, Tolkien or no Tolkien.