Topic: A new take on non-human races

Starting from my post on the demi-humans in historical campaigns, I wrote up an entire essay on an alternative presentation / flavor text for the three DnD race-classes.

My approach essentially centers on the idea of "faerie" as a base principle of Chaos, and finally cutting Tolkien out of the equation. I hope you'll like it.

The pdf on Scribd

Re: A new take on non-human races

I think demihumans should not appear in historical campaigns as player character choice. Remove them entirely and/or leave them as part of weird element of your game. Another option is to use them as a template for different and mysterious nations/races - halflings as Picts and murderous natives of South America, dwarfs as primitive barbarians (black tribal warriors of Africa, forgotten remains of Vikings from Antarctica/Greenland) and elves as sorcerous mystics from Asia (Hindu and Chinese warlocks for example). "Cutting Tolkien out of equation" isn't good move IMO as Tolkien is part of the OD&D equation - no matter how hard some people try to deny it and claim otherwise.

Re: A new take on non-human races

Nice essay, and, I think, a strong effort at twisting the "demihumans" into something darker and weirder.

I always thought TSR had a good concept with Ravenloft's Arak ("shadow fey"), and should  have moved them into the mainstream D&D multiverse.

I plan to include them (with serial numbers filed off) in my LotFP campaigns, with human only PCs.

"The universe is indeed humorous,  but the joke is on mankind."  -- H.P. Lovecraft.

Visit my blog at http://greatandsmallrpg.blogspot.com/ !

Re: A new take on non-human races

Shockwave wrote:

"Cutting Tolkien out of equation" isn't good move IMO as Tolkien is part of the OD&D equation - no matter how hard some people try to deny it and claim otherwise.

I never said he's not part of the equation. I just said I prefer to have him out of it. wink

Honestly, while I love the Hobbit for what it is (though I do think Farmer Giles of Ham surpasses it in certain aspects), and read Lord of the Rings many times when I was a teen, I dislike his simplistically Christian worldview, and am quite irked by the unending recurrence of his disfigured image in modern fantasy.

And his mutated legacy is guilty of something even more horrid than endless reiterations of the journey of naive farmboys through a world of peril. It's the assassination of fantasy itself, the total extirpation of wonder. Tolkien was able to make orcs and trolls look truly horroristic, especially in Moria; and to make elves truly wondrous... but he was the only one who could do that. Pseudo-Tolkien fantasy lacks soul. It lacks imagination. It lacks, well, fantasy.

Add to this that in the world of gaming, Tolkienic tropes evoke a genre that is completely foreign from the picaresque-like adventuring that makes role playing games truly fun, and help give rise to the "story-driven adventure", bane of all tabletop gaming.

Re: A new take on non-human races

I'm with Lepus on this one.  Yes, Tolkien is part of the equation, but he's not an essential part of it.  There's nothing in the mechanics of OD&D that requires elves, for instance, to be portrayed as conservative tree-huggers.  Mechanically, they're just fighter/magic-users; the fluff is inherently malleable.

Plus, there are plenty of fantasy fans in the world who prefer the older, weirder, more traditional portrayal of "elves" as capricious trickster fairies who steal children and dip their hats in blood.  We shouldn't have to shackle our imaginations to Tolkein's corpse just because that's how EGG did it.

"The universe is indeed humorous,  but the joke is on mankind."  -- H.P. Lovecraft.

Visit my blog at http://greatandsmallrpg.blogspot.com/ !