Why do elves suck?

[Doug McCrae]

Fritz Leiber created the original adventuring team, Fafhrd and Grey Mouser.

Why not cite Gilgamesh and Enkidu, if all it takes is a duo?

The Fellowship looks a lot more like the typical D&D party to me. For one thing, there are more than two of them. Also the variety of races is Tolkienesque. Leiber and Howard's heroes are all human.

I was thinking of the Mines of Moria as a dungeon crawl in the sense that a whole adventuring party goes underground and encounters monsters. Of course there are plenty of prior examples of individual heroes doing this, such as the story of Orpheus, but not gangs. The only other example I know of is Merritt's The Moon Pool, which is listed in the 1e AD&D bibliography.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Why not cite Gilgamesh and Enkidu, if all it takes is a duo?

Maybe I will. I could also state Jason and the Argonauts as an example of an adventuring party.

The point stands: Tolkien did not invent the concept of adventuring parties.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

but d&d took from lotr the iconic adventuring parties we have today, were the wizard is the strongest, and that alone has had a profound impact on d&d

 

[Mycanid]

Hmm ... has the thread turned into an anti-JRRT thread?

I thought it was elves in general we were speaking of. Oh well. :\

 

[Moon-Lancer]

thats my fault, i think. I am not sorry that this thread is changed from what it started out to be though.


anyway, about the ear thing...

in the ETYMOLOGIES Tolkien says this. The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [?human].

Tolkien's sun could not read his fathers handwriting [?human], so we know that elven ears were more pointed then "something"

also he describes them as having a leaf shape, but some leaves look like human ears so hard to definitively tell what he meant by this. But to say they were "described" as being exactly like human ears is false.

*Ah edit*

i see what you mean now, I dont know. People tend to lay the hate on Tolkien when they blindly rant about elves.

 

[questing gm]

Elves suck if the DM says so...and i know one DM who has a hostile apathy for them, he says he blame the BoEF...

and about fixing them, well...

I made the elves in my homebrew more primal in nature, living in the woods as nomads and using primitive weapons like bows. The humans are the ones that are subjugating them with their high order and civilization.

 

[molonel]

The point stands: Tolkien did not invent the concept of adventuring parties.

The fact that he didn't invent the concept has no bearing on where his influence flowed from.

And I think it's awfully hard to argue that the totally human duo of Fritz's Leiber's books is more like the average D&D party than the Fellowship of the Ring.

It's also a LOT harder to argue that Conan, who was largely a solo adventurer, bore more of a resemblance than the Fellowship (wizard, elf, dwarf, human ranger, halfling rogues/scouts).

There is saying, and there is doing. D&D is heavily, HEAVILY influenced by Tolkien. In 1st Edition AD&D, prior to the release of Unearthed Arcana, you could only be a human ranger (Aragorn). There were treants (ents), balors (balrogs), half-elves.

Show me where these things flowed from the Conan stories, and I'll concede the point.

Heck, barbarians as a class didn't even show up until Unearthed Arcana.

 

[Dimwhit]

he says he blame the BoEF...

Ah, the Book of Elf Porn. If anything, that should make someone more inclined to LIKE Elves...

 

[frankthedm]

Make em 1/2 a foot taller taller than humans,
Change the -2 Con to -2 Wis
-5% Arcane failure rate for worn armor
Drop the secret door BS
Drop bonus weapons
Favored class:any arcane spellcaster

 

[mhacdebhandia]

well i mean not to offend, but i didn't imply you were a fan of dwarves and halfings. I'm saying I have known people to be fans of dwarves and halfings.

Most of my message was not meant to imply anything about you and if thats how it came across, then i'm sorry.

just becuse Gary Freaking Gygax says what influence him, this does not mean it was so.

halfings at the time of od&d were called Hobbits. That is purely from lotr. Orc is also strait out of lotr. G&G had a law suit hanging over his head. do you think it was in his best interest to say d&d was based off lord of the rings? hobbits were changed to halfings.

Does anyone have a good case as to how d&d isn't like lord of the rings and what books influenced it more? I don't put much faith into what G&G says. I look at the final product, and just its names is very telling.

If you knew more about the beginnings of D&D, you'd realise how much was drawn from non-Lord of the Rings sources (for instance, the prismatic spray spell is literally straight from the Excellent Prismatic Spray in Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories) . . . and that it was Dave Arneson's suggestion that Tolkien elements be included, to capture his fanbase.

You know what elements of D&D come from Tolkien? You named nearly half of them - halflings, orcs, elves. The other four? Rangers (a la Aragorn), treants (originally ents), goblins, and the balor (based on the Balrog).

That's it. I'm not giving you dwarves, dragons, groups of adventurers, dungeons, any of that. There's precedent in mythology, folklore, and other writers for all of it.