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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Puddles" data-source="post: 8090972" data-attributes="member: 7026093">I would be hesitant to state that deviating from Tolkien is always a good thing. There are both pros and cons when distancing your D&D world from Tolkienesque fantasy.The more changes you make, the harder you make your game world to recognise for your players. In addition, a big part of the creation of the game is in the hands of the players as well as the DM. For example, if a player looks through the PHB and builds a character from it, their decisions will impact your game. Say they make a Wood Elf Ranger and create their associated backstory, that will imply there is a Mirkwood equivalent in your fantasy world.So with my most recent campaign, that was for new players, my first step in world building was establishing where there are Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Tieflings, Dragonborn etc etc so no matter which the players chose, there would be a place for them in world.Sure, if the group as a whole is tired of Tolkien tropes, creating something new and unique can be exciting for both the DM and the players. But unless this is the case, I wouldn’t advise a DM to radically alter the way the different ancestries are presented in the PHB. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>