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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 8090737" data-attributes="member: 59082">Part of the reason it is so easy to be "trapped by Tolkien" is because his creation is so exquisitely crafted, and his expressions of fantasy material so archetypal - as if he tapped into their "ur-forms" and gave them life.Another facet is just how influential he is in the fantasy tradition. He is, in many ways, to fantasy literature what Jesus Christ is to world history--there's a meaningful before and after point, regardless of how one personally feels about him. Tolkien influenced the entire genre, from the mid-50s on; even those writers who were subversive, usually did so in relation--or opposed--to Tolkien in some way (e.g. Moorcock, Donaldson, etc). Or to put it more profanely, he's the Babe Ruth of fantasy. That said, because of the long shadow he casts, many don't realize that there is a lot of pre-Tolkien stuff that can provide interesting sources to dive into. RE Howard and HP Lovecraft also had a significant influence on D&D, and one can look at other early fantasists like George MacDonald, William Morris, Algernon Blackwood, James Branch Cabell, Clark Ashton Smith, ER Eddison, CL Moore, Lord Dunsany and others. And of course Gary Gygax was influenced by authors contemporary to and after Tolkien such as Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K Le Guin, Andre Norton, and others. And there are countless post-Tolkien authors that are unique and display "Tolkien autonomy" that can be mined for material.It perhaps goes without saying that there are significant differences in what goes into building a world for a novel versus for a game. The former is meant to serve the story, while the latter is meant to serve the play experience. But both should be designed with what the worldbuilder's intention is, and what sort of flavors they want in their soup. There really are no limits, be it drawing from the fantasy tradition--Before or After Tolkien--or other sources. But Tolkien does provide an extremely well-crafted and beautiful expression of fantasy archetypes, and ones that many people not only are familiar with, but love. As for my own worldbuilding, like most of my generation (X) I was deeply impacted by reading Tolkien, although read widely and had many influences. But I do remember a specific point in my career as a worldbuilder, when I not only de-tangled myself from Tolkien, but also from D&D. It was with the world setting of my stories, and I remember a point when I realized that the elves of my world weren't actually elves, they were something else. And then dwarves and other Tolkien and D&D tropes began to disappear--even dragons!--although there are beings and ideas in my world which have some degree of resonance with many more traditional forms. But they were something other, as if I found my own way into the wellspring of fantasy without the intermediary of one of the greats to guide me.Since then--about 30 years ago--I've had a two-pronged world-building career, which I've kept pretty distinctly apart. There's the world of my writing on one hand, and on the other the settings I create for gaming. The former is an ongoing project, and has evolved over the decades (although remained relatively consistent for the last 15 years or so, with mostly small to moderate changes, and most of those in terms of deepening). The latter involves the creation of a new setting every 5 years or so, or whenever I start a new campaign. Sometimes it draws upon the previous setting, other times it has been entirely new.My writing world is designed both to create something beautiful, and tell stories in. The RPG worlds are designed to facilitate an enjoyable play experience for me and my group. I'm more of a "purist" with the former, and thus more cognizant of being autonomous from major influences like Tolkien, but for the RPG worlds it doesn't matter as much. I'm more...omnivorous. I still care about creating something internally consistent, but the bottom line is the fun of the play experience, while my writing world is more artistic.Or to put it another way, my writing world is my attempt at a grand symphony, and the RPG worlds are like jam bands.</blockquote>

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