Quote from: Brad on January 23, 2024, 08:33:45 PM
Crab people, of course.

"Taste like crab, talk like people."

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 23, 2024, 08:25:56 PM
Half-dwarves, eh... dwarves are too human already, feels pointless unless they have a separate history (as muls).

That tends to be how I feel about halflings. I think Dark Sun is the only setting I've seen that's done something unique enough with them to justify their inclusion. They're usually either hobbit-clones or just short humans.

Quote from: Baron on January 23, 2024, 08:46:49 PM
There's a half-orc in Fellowship, in Bree I think. He's a spy.

I can't recall if that's confirmed or not. I know the Uruk Hai are essentially half-orcs as well, but that doesn't strike me as the inspiration for D&D's half orcs.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 23, 2024, 09:29:12 PM
I can't recall if that's confirmed or not. I know the Uruk Hai are essentially half-orcs as well, but that doesn't strike me as the inspiration for D&D's half orcs.

Squint-eyed Southerner

Literally a D&D half-orc by the description in the PHB and LotR. So it might not be confirmed, but it's right out of the books. As much as Gygax railed on "D&D ISN'T TOLKIEN!!!!", there are A LOT of Tolkienisms (is that a word...) Rangers = Aragorn, (tr)eants, halfings, balrogs, whatever else. He might have been trying to make a Fritz Leiber tale, but his players were sure hell-bent on getting elven cloaks and mithril coats into the game.

Yeah, Baron is right. That character does feel like a D&D half-orc (pass as human, sneaking abilities, etc.).

I agree with ForgottenF about Halflings, I can't stand them.

Agree with Brad about the Tolkien influence too.

D&D is a big mix of influences, but the Tolkien parts feel so overused that I have an immediate dislike. I've been replacing everything I can with different beings (which is why I made this thread).

(I also have grown tired of dungeons with skeletons, giant rats and goblins, all in adjacent room with no decent explanation. But that is another issue).

Quote from: Brad on January 23, 2024, 10:05:28 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 23, 2024, 09:29:12 PM
I can't recall if that's confirmed or not. I know the Uruk Hai are essentially half-orcs as well, but that doesn't strike me as the inspiration for D&D's half orcs.

Squint-eyed Southerner

Literally a D&D half-orc by the description in the PHB and LotR. So it might not be confirmed, but it's right out of the books. As much as Gygax railed on "D&D ISN'T TOLKIEN!!!!", there are A LOT of Tolkienisms (is that a word...) Rangers = Aragorn, (tr)eants, halfings, balrogs, whatever else. He might have been trying to make a Fritz Leiber tale, but his players were sure hell-bent on getting elven cloaks and mithril coats into the game.

"Inspiration" was probably the wrong word. I was more wondering why the decision was made to make half-orcs a core player option. It might just be "we want another player race, and Tolkien said it's a thing"; that would not surprise me, but I wondered if anyone had heard or read anything more concrete.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 23, 2024, 10:25:37 PM
Yeah, Baron is right. That character does feel like a D&D half-orc (pass as human, sneaking abilities, etc.).

I agree with ForgottenF about Halflings, I can't stand them.

Agree with Brad about the Tolkien influence too.

D&D is a big mix of influences, but the Tolkien parts feel so overused that I have an immediate dislike. I've been replacing everything I can with different beings (which is why I made this thread).

(I also have grown tired of dungeons with skeletons, giant rats and goblins, all in adjacent room with no decent explanation. But that is another issue).

I'm sort of halfway with you on that and halfway not. There is a charm to the stereotypes of "standard fantasy" which I occasionally get nostalgic for, and there's some practical benefits (easy for new players to understand, minimal conversion for different game systems, etc.) But at the same time, there's no denying it's gotten pretty trite and stale.

In my own recent setting projects, I've been oscillating between wanting to strip out the D&D races entirely, and trying to rewrite some of the classic races so that the flavor is totally different, but the game stats don't need to be changed. I thought of halflings because they're the one traditional race which I decided had to be written out of the setting I'm currently working on. There's nothing unique I want to do with them, and I'm not willing to shoehorn in a Shire analogue just to fit them in.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 23, 2024, 11:50:58 PM
"Inspiration" was probably the wrong word. I was more wondering why the decision was made to make half-orcs a core player option. It might just be "we want another player race, and Tolkien said it's a thing"; that would not surprise me, but I wondered if anyone had heard or read anything more concrete.

Okay, this is actually a good question then. If you go from D&D which is basically "do whatever you want" to AD&D with its "Monsters as PCs? Pish posh!" stance, maybe the PHB was throwing the original players a bone or something so they could play a marginally evil race. Even Holmes held over the do whatever attitude, which was entirely stripped out in B/X and BECMI.

Like I said, good question...there seems to have been a massive shift in the attitude and formalization of the game from inception to no more than three years later; what happened in that time is probably found somewhere in one of those Jon Peterson books that I have on my shelf and have yet to read.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 23, 2024, 11:50:58 PM
I'm sort of halfway with you on that and halfway not. There is a charm to the stereotypes of "standard fantasy" which I occasionally get nostalgic for, and there's some practical benefits (easy for new players to understand, minimal conversion for different game systems, etc.) But at the same time, there's no denying it's gotten pretty trite and stale.

In my own recent setting projects, I've been oscillating between wanting to strip out the D&D races entirely, and trying to rewrite some of the classic races so that the flavor is totally different, but the game stats don't need to be changed. I thought of halflings because they're the one traditional race which I decided had to be written out of the setting I'm currently working on. There's nothing unique I want to do with them, and I'm not willing to shoehorn in a Shire analogue just to fit them in.

My take is that if these things go stale, it's because we let them.  Or just kind of nodded along while others drove them stale.  Now, for any particular thing, maybe that's inevitable.  Fighting giant rats at the beginning of zero to hero crosses over into a lot of video games too, and there's only so much you can do.  But you don't have to throw out the whole list of "was stale the last time we used it".

I think that keeping the stats but changing the flavor can work for some niche monsters, but it doesn't really address the problem fully with something that is going to recur a lot in the campaign, let alone be a PC option.  You try "darker, edgy halflings, that's a tough line to walk well.  You can get a lot of mileage out of some minor changes, though--if those minor changes align with the new flavor.  This is an area where Gygaxian Naturalism really shines, too.  Halfling cannibals is kind of cute, though I'm not a Dark Sun fan so maybe there is something I"m missing.  Halfling carnivores that can smell meat like sharks, are a little smaller, but with a bite attack, halfway to wild, I could do something with that.  I wouldn't, because I think the Hobbit flavor is already so distinct that I'd just as soon make something else to fit that idea, but I can see it working.  You can do the same thing with goblins, or giant rates, etc.

And of course, "bandits" and other human or PC races as foes is only as interesting as the situation the GM sets up, which ought to say something about the edgier, darker mechanics, too.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 24, 2024, 08:06:03 AM
My take is that if these things go stale, it's because we let them.  Or just kind of nodded along while others drove them stale.  Now, for any particular thing, maybe that's inevitable.  Fighting giant rats at the beginning of zero to hero crosses over into a lot of video games too, and there's only so much you can do.  But you don't have to throw out the whole list of "was stale the last time we used it".

Fighting giant rats in a basement is one of those things like "you start in a tavern". People are so afraid of the stereotype that IME it rarely actually happens. I think the only time I've ever started a  campaign by fighting rats underground was in Final Fantasy XII.

I'm less bothered about that sort of thing, as it's incredibly easy to avoid. I've just seen too many fantasy worlds where elves live in forests, are good at magic and like nature; dwarves live in mountains, are bad at magic and make stuff; halflings live in small rural communities and like food; gnomes are quirky and like tech; magic is a supernatural substance/energy that infuses the world and is manipulated by wizards, etc. etc. etc.

Don't get me wrong. There's a very good reason why "standard fantasy" is the standard. It's easily recognizable and understood by the vast majority of people, and it works very well as a setting for fantasy adventures. It's got an extremely low barrier to entry. I don't think its an accident that almost all the most successful fantasy settings across different media start with this framework and then build their unique selling points on top of it. Not to mention other practical/compatibility considerations. The more closely a setting hews to the aesthetics of "standard fantasy", the more character archetypes, art, monsters, etc. you can bring in from other settings and have it smoothly fit. The same is true of other very well established subgenres like gothic horror, steampunk/cyberpunk, sword & sorcery or the Cthulhu mythos, which is probably why when people want to put a spin on "standard fantasy", they so often do it by mixing it with one of those other subgenres.

I think based on what Eric said, he's inclined to bin as many of the trappings of standard fantasy as possible. I get that impulse, but at the moment I'm more making that compromise of keeping them in for practical reasons, and trying to remix them according to my own tastes.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 24, 2024, 08:06:03 AM
I think that keeping the stats but changing the flavor can work for some niche monsters, but it doesn't really address the problem fully with something that is going to recur a lot in the campaign, let alone be a PC option.  You try "darker, edgy halflings, that's a tough line to walk well.  You can get a lot of mileage out of some minor changes, though--if those minor changes align with the new flavor.  This is an area where Gygaxian Naturalism really shines, too.  Halfling cannibals is kind of cute, though I'm not a Dark Sun fan so maybe there is something I"m missing.  Halfling carnivores that can smell meat like sharks, are a little smaller, but with a bite attack, halfway to wild, I could do something with that. 

I guess I mostly agree. Just reskinning a monster doesn't do much, because the primary way you engage with a monster is mechanically. The cosmetic changes matter a bit, but you really need new mechanics to shake things up. Player/NPC races I think you can get a bit more mileage out of cultural/flavor changes, since players interact with them more through roleplay, and the stats matter a bit less as they're going to have character classes or custom stats for individuals or types. And depending on the game, there can be some fringe workarounds for tweaking stats without totally homebrewing them. For E.g., I'm sort of tentatively writing the current setting with Against the Darkmaster in mind. That game has cultures as separate to race, so while I'm leaning towards keeping the race stats as they are in the base game, I can still change the recommended cultures to reflect the new lore.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 23, 2024, 08:13:30 PM
I suppose this is as good of a place as any to ask this question: Does anyone know why Gygax elected to include half-orcs as a player race in 1e?

Half-elves are in Tolkien, and with both Elf and Human as player races, it makes sense that romances between them were cropping up in the game and had to be addressed. But half-orcs seem always seemed like a curious choice. I'd guess TSR was getting requests for orcs as a playable race, and it was a compromise, but Gygax doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd make that compromise. I'd have expected half-dwarfs and half-halflings(?) before half-orcs, but outside of Muls in Dark Sun, I don't think we've ever gotten official versions of them in D&D.

EDIT: changed the language somewhat.

Half-elves go back to old legends of the faerie folk. And further as in some Norse tales Loki is half giant for example.

Half orcs may stem from their nature. Gygax was obviously not basing them off the Tolkien orcs. At a guess theres some obscure book he got the idea from. Or a joke. Remember that alot of D&D stuff came about from play and the then still young players goofing off.

As for halflings. Actually there are in AD&D. The various subtypes of halfling note that they have elvish blood and that suggests the ones with dwarven aspects have dwarven blood. That actually may be a not do Tolkien as it is mentioned in one of the books or notes.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 24, 2024, 02:47:25 PM

I guess I mostly agree. Just reskinning a monster doesn't do much, because the primary way you engage with a monster is mechanically. The cosmetic changes matter a bit, but you really need new mechanics to shake things up. Player/NPC races I think you can get a bit more mileage out of cultural/flavor changes, since players interact with them more through roleplay, and the stats matter a bit less as they're going to have character classes or custom stats for individuals or types. And depending on the game, there can be some fringe workarounds for tweaking stats without totally homebrewing them. For E.g., I'm sort of tentatively writing the current setting with Against the Darkmaster in mind. That game has cultures as separate to race, so while I'm leaning towards keeping the race stats as they are in the base game, I can still change the recommended cultures to reflect the new lore.

Yeah, I think we mostly agree.  The point I was trying to make, though, that got kind of blurred, is that a small flavor change paired with a well-matched mechanical change is actually stronger than a big flavor change alone or a big mechanical change alone.  Getting the optimum balance can be tricky, but when you pull it off you get the advantages of novelty and familiarity all in one package.

Tinker Gnomes, silly but I love 'em.