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How to make campaign settings less... Tolkien?

Started by BoxCrayonTales, April 09, 2018, 01:38:27 PM

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Trond

#60
April 16, 2018, 10:06:40 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1033530D&D has numerous influences, including pulp fiction and Tolkien. What has always interested me the most were the uniquely American (and British) influences, such as the pulps and westerns. The earliest editions of D&D described the world as similar in geography and population to the American west and introduced order/chaos politics straight out of Moorcock, with the Tolkien influence (elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs) serving largely as window dressing. At some points we even got cool stuff like crashed alien spaceships and a blurry line between magic and technology.

Tolkien's legacy has colored all fiction that came afterward. G.R.R. Martin is often hailed as the "American Tolkien" because he is an American who wrote edgy LotR fan fiction. Meanwhile, the real American Tolkiens like Lovecraft and Howard and Baum receive almost no recognition in popular culture outside of endless reprints of their work because of their public domain status. As more D&D settings developed, they grew closer and closer to the pseudo-medieval aesthetic of Tolkien and further away from the pseudo-western and pulp aesthetic.

How does one make a campaign setting less Tolkien? What are the styles and world building elements that make the westerns, pulps, Oz, etc unique from Tolkien clones?

I don't really see the issue unless you insist on playing Tolkien-inspired games like D&D (or more obvious ones like The One Ring). Why not play the new Conan game? (or old ones?) I also don't think Howard and Lovecraft did not get much exposure. Tolkien's LOTR was a massive seller, but I keep seeing references to Howard and Lovecraft in literature, music, and games etc etc. That clearly includes RPGs. So, again, why the need to hang on to D&D? Tolkien was included in D&D from the start. (which is not a bad thing unless you're tired of him, like I presume the OP is)

RPGPundit

#61
April 21, 2018, 03:42:24 AM
Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1033943Shameful!


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S'mon

#62
April 21, 2018, 06:18:15 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit;1035311Holy shit! This is awesome! I'm totally using it.

A guy in Norman chainmail & helmet with a greatsword is NOT medieval authentic! :D

GameDaddy

#63
April 21, 2018, 06:59:14 AM
Blackmoor grew from a single Castle to include, first, several adjacent Castles (with the forces of Evil lying just off the edge of the world to an entire Northern Province of the Castle and Crusade Society's Great Kingdom.

~ Dave Arneson

Herne's Son

#64
April 21, 2018, 12:26:44 PM
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1033542Simple.

You and your players read some books other than Tolkien.

The Tolkienization of D&D is mostly a product of the player base, not the rules.  The default play of D&D changed drastically in the mid 80s when the fantasy literature boom exploded, and if you look at the fantasy books published in the 80s you will notice that a) per Sturgeon, most of them are crap and 2) they are almost ALL "epic quest to save the world" shit.

Read some Howard and Lieber and Moorcock -- EARLY Moorcock -- and DeCamp and Dunsany and Lovecraft, etc, etc, etc.

Stop thinking about Tolkien as the default and Tolkien will no longer be the default.

No need to thank me, just buy me a beer.

I would argue that part of the reason for this attitude of "Tolkien First!" has a lot to do with the time that D&D hit the mainstream. I discovered D&D thanks to the Holmes blue box in '79 (or thereabouts) when I was about 9 years old. At that time, bookstores were not necessarily divided up by genre like they are now. There was usually a "Science Fiction" ghetto in the back of most decent-sized bookstores, and that would contain the entire spectrum of what we think of as "imaginative" or "genre" fiction now. Stephen King, Frank Herbert, and Robert E. Howard would be within inches of each other on the shelf.

Tolkien, however, was hitting -big- in the 70s. His books were coming out of the scifi ghetto and appearing at the "staff recommends" area of most bookstores in my area. So all my friends who were remotely interested in fantasy and scifi, were reading Tolkien.

Then we discover D&D about the same time, and look right there in the books are rules for being hobbits, elves, and dwarves and stuff. We can fight orcs! Cast spells! How neat, this is clearly a Tolkien game!

Of course, as we grew, many of us started reading outside the Tolkien books, and bringing ideas from other writers into our games. But funny enough, even as I grew to love Lovecraft, Moorcock, Anderson, LeGuin, etc., I still wanted Tolkien in my game.

For me, and I'd imagine many others, discovery of Tolkien and D&D was interconnected. Sort of a "you never forget your first loves" kind of thing, I guess.

Gronan of Simmerya

#65
April 21, 2018, 01:41:22 PM
You should go to GaryCon.  Period.

The rules can\'t cure stupid, and the rules can\'t cure asshole.

Teodrik

#67
April 21, 2018, 02:53:22 PM
Quote from: S'mon;1035316A guy in Norman chainmail & helmet with a greatsword is NOT medieval authentic! :D

That is not a renesancse greatsword. Looks like a common knights sword, which often had longer grips for two-handed wielding. Or what people today often refer to a "bastard sword", but would probably just be called a "long sword".

Gronan of Simmerya

#68
April 21, 2018, 04:51:45 PM
Quote from: Teodrik;1035354That is not a renesancse greatsword. Looks like a common knights sword, which often had longer grips for two-handed wielding. Or what people today often refer to a "bastard sword", but would probably just be called a "long sword".

Renaissance.

And at any rate, that sword is still 200 or more years too late for a Norman knight to use.
You should go to GaryCon.  Period.

The rules can\'t cure stupid, and the rules can\'t cure asshole.

Teodrik

#69
April 21, 2018, 10:17:18 PM Last Edit: April 21, 2018, 10:35:06 PM by Teodrik
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1035364Renaissance.

And at any rate, that sword is still 200 or more years too late for a Norman knight to use.

Lying autocorrect.

I would agree with you. But I am not certain about the helmet. It does not look that old style norman (especially the face guard) but more one of those later designs that was continusly used  later in different european regions. It looks much like a cross-midstep between the later italian conical babuta style and the sicilio-norman. So my point being looking at it as strictly 1000-1100's norman may be looking with the wrong glasses.

Or it might actually be a norman knight from around the first crusade when the earlier versions of  norman sword with one-and-half-hand hilts had come into use. But the hilt on the picture is still a bit too long and the pummel and guard seems a bit off (but not impossible)

Franky

#70
April 21, 2018, 11:29:31 PM
Is that a Norman helmet?  It lacks the nose guard.  The cheeks guards are not something I associate with the Norman look either.  Not an expert, me, so take with a grain of salt.  

An arming sword  is what I would expect of a Norman knight, not a longsword/bastard sword/hand and a half sword.

I don't think the illustration is supposed to be a Norman.  Or particularly accurate, historically speaking.

crkrueger

#71
April 22, 2018, 03:07:07 AM
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1035364Renaissance.

And at any rate, that sword is still 200 or more years too late for a Norman knight to use.

The blade is pretty wide and doesn't taper.  You're sure that couldn't pass for an Oakeshott Type XIII?  Those have been found to date into the late 1100s.
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GameDaddy

#72
April 22, 2018, 08:02:23 AM
Beyond Historical Accuracy: A Postmodern View of Movies and Medievalism

http://www.medievalists.net/2009/04/beyond-historical-accuracy-a-postmodern-view-of-movies-and-medievalism/
Blackmoor grew from a single Castle to include, first, several adjacent Castles (with the forces of Evil lying just off the edge of the world to an entire Northern Province of the Castle and Crusade Society's Great Kingdom.

~ Dave Arneson

Christopher Brady

#74
April 22, 2018, 01:07:15 PM
Quote from: CRKrueger;1035426The blade is pretty wide and doesn't taper.  You're sure that couldn't pass for an Oakeshott Type XIII?  Those have been found to date into the late 1100s.

As geezer pointed out the long sword didn't come into play until the early to mid 14th century.  Due to the fact that plate hadn't been a thing, thus the idea was you didn't need that much leverage to penetrate armour (And I mean kinetic transfer of damage, not actually bursting of chain links.)  Also, the shield was still in use by the nobility as a defensive weapon.
"And now, my friends, a Dragon\'s toast!  To life\'s little blessings:  wars, plagues and all forms of evil.  Their presence keeps us alert --- and their absence makes us grateful." -T.A. Barron[/SIZE]
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