De-Tolkienizing D&D

[TheCountAlucard]

Angels and archangels got their starts as gods, too. Certain monotheistic religions weren't always all that monotheistic.

Heck, even in polytheistic religions the line was fuzzy at times: Hermes was often called the messenger of the gods, but he was a god himself. In quite a few cases the servants and messengers of gods were themselves gods (albeit generally lesser ones, but a lesser god is still a god).

[SimonMoon6]

I haven't had the chance to read the whole thread, so someone tell me if this has been mentioned already, but what's there to remove? No wait, hear me out!

I'm not trying to deny that there are things that definitely feel like Tolkien's stuff (orcs and elves, dwarves, hobbits...), but if you look into the settings

The settings are definitely melting pots of all sorts of stuff.

But when you focus on what a player encounters first (rather than what a DM encounters first), such as the character creation system, it feels heavily drenched in Tolkien.

What races can you play? Well, you can play any of the "good guy" races from Tolkien: humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, half-elves. You can even sort of be a bad guy race, a half-orc. What's an orc? Oh, yeah that creature from Tolkien that (apart from obscure language technicalities) only ever appeared in Tolkien before people copied him. And that's pretty much it, apart from gnomes... because the game can't be *just* Tolkien (though I hear 4th edition even took out gnomes).

What classes can you play? Well you can be a burglar (thief/rogue) just like Bilbo. You can be a ranger just like Aragorn. You can be generic fighters like all the dwarves. You can be a wizard (magic-user or mage) just like Gandalf (except, well, you can cast spells). Heck, if you're in Basic D&D, "elf" might even be a class of its own, so you can play Legolas. Then, we have to throw in some stuff to not be a complete rip-off of Tolkien... okay, have some religious characters. And variants on wizards. Done.

And, yes, a lot of that stuff is found in other sources than Tolkien. But this *particular* collection of stuff neatly intersects with precisely what exists in Tolkien's works.

[SimonMoon6]

{scrubbed}

[Blake Hannon]

Get rid of elves, dwarves, and halflings, or at least reinterpret their source mythology in a different way than Tolkien did.

Do away with the concept of mook races of Always Chaotic Evil humanoids that mill about in their primitive tribes whenever there isn't a Dark Lord to rally around.

Try to avoid the theme of "the world used to be super magical but now its all slowly becoming mundane." Tolkien didn't invent this trope, but its one that many people identify with his work.

And really, that's it. Aside from a short list of races and monsters, DnD never borrowed that much from Tolkien in the first place. The only reason people think it did is because a few of those elements are disproportionately visible (elves, dwarves, and halflings are core player races, and thus get a lot of attention).

[Wardog]

And the whole orcs using tech was from the movies, so that's not Tolkien's orcs that's Jackson's orcs (trying to emphasize the Isengard = Industry idea).

"Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far. "
~ The Hobbit

[Kami2awa]

"Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far. "
~ The Hobbit

So that's humans, what about the goblins?

[KnightOfV]

Hobbits were peaceful country folk with some innate roguish traits and remarkable inner spirit if pushed. Halflings are charismatic well traveled gypsies always looking for mischief and adventure, and tend have magical singing abilities.
Elves went from perfect angelic beings to quick, frail, innately magical and somewhat prissy, bickering, arrogant flawed creatures.
Dwarves... yea people just like Tolkien Dwarves. But you can always play up the religious aspect DnD brought in with the clerics and such.
Half-orcs can be heroes, unlike the all evil orc/human crossbreeds in Tolkien's world.

Gnomes, dragonborn, Tieflings, Aasimars and such are all very un-Tolkien.

I could see pre-Drizzt DnD feeling like a Tolkien rip off, but each feels like it's own thing to me with all the many editions, lore and video games that have come and gone.

[Wardog]

Dwarves... yea people just like Tolkien Dwarves. But you can always play up the religious aspect DnD brought in with the clerics and such.

Even there, I think there is a big difference between Tolkien and D&D dwarves.

D&D (and derivitive fantasy) dwarves seem to be based on a Flanderized version of Gimli ("Tough warrior, uses an axe"), with a load of other tropes added on that don't seem to come from Tolkien: hard-drinking, uncultured, non-magical or anti-magical (pre-3rd edition), and Scottish (not sure if that one's from D&D).

But Tolkien dwarves aren't an inherently martial people (the opposite in fact). Making dwarves into natural warriors because (some) of the main characters in the stories are is like making all humans into Boromir-clones. And when they do fight, they don't just use axes.

They are also highly cultured, good singers, make and play harps (which D&D seems to associate with elves), use magic in their crafts, and often highly emotional (weeping when mourning or distressed). And they're not Scottish - their names are Norse, and their language is based on Semitic languages.


As far as I can tell, apart from "small", "live underground" and "good at crafts" (which all come from pre-existing mythology), they only generic dwarf traits that carried through from Tolkien to D&D seem to be "beards" and "don't like elves". Everything else seems to be either something one dwarf did, or else made up completely.

[Marlowe]

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