05-18-2019, 10:42 AM | #11 |
Ceci n'est pas une tag.
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vancouver, WA (Portland Metro)
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Re: Tolkienesque Worlds or Non-Tolkienesque Worlds?
That would make me a fan of Tolkien knock-offs. I blatantly and cheerfully "data mine" (plagiarize) from many sources, both literary and RPG.
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I'm a collector, not a gamer. =) |
05-18-2019, 10:48 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Apr 2019
Location: Salt Lake City
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Re: Tolkienesque Worlds or Non-Tolkienesque Worlds?
I did a fantasy setting based off of the world of Alexander the Great. It's as grand as Ptolus, but I had to use the Fandom Wiki to publish it through. It's not Tolkienesque, I worked hard to change everything.
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05-18-2019, 11:14 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: The Great White North
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Re: Tolkienesque Worlds or Non-Tolkienesque Worlds?
Quote:
Just a few of the things that are different from the literature before Tolkien.
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How do you keep a fool busy? Turn upside down for answer. ˙ɹǝʍsuɐ ɹoɟ uʍop ǝpısdn uɹnʇ ¿ʎsnq ןooɟ ɐ dǝǝʞ noʎ op ʍoɥ |
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05-18-2019, 04:04 PM | #14 |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Tolkienesque Worlds or Non-Tolkienesque Worlds?
Middle Earth is in some ways a stereotypical fantasy setting, but its more of their forerunner than their template. If you asked me to pick out a "Template" for stereotypical fantasy settings, I would look at D&D settings, Warhammer, Warcraft, and Magic the Gathering. These are more mature versions, backed up by an abundance of art, multiple creators, and marketing machines rarely accessible for a book.
I have a preference for non-stereotypical settings, but I have no objection to using the tools given me. Sometimes the setting calls for elves. I just prefer my settings to be distinctive, and my default is humans, not human-elf-dwarf-goblin(-undead)
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
05-18-2019, 04:41 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Tolkienesque Worlds or Non-Tolkienesque Worlds?
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
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05-18-2019, 05:16 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Tolkienesque Worlds or Non-Tolkienesque Worlds?
There are certain aspects of Tolkien that nobody wants to copy. But the default elf/dwarf/halfling/orc thing is from Tolkien.
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05-18-2019, 05:24 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Tolkienesque Worlds or Non-Tolkienesque Worlds?
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I would distinguish several cases: * There is fantasy set in Middle-Earth, or in an alternate history version of Middle-Earth, such as my "What if Sauron won the War of the Ring?" * There is what I would call "Tolkien knock-offs." These are stories, films, or games that preserve the furniture of Middle-Earth—multiple humanoid races, magic rings and swords, largely empty landscapes with scattered monsters or ancient ruins—but use them to tell pure action/adventure stories without, for example, Tolkien's themes of the temptations of power, or mortality, memory, and grief; they're just about killing the monster and carrying off the treasure. Most "fantasy" RPGs seem to have some of this, though I've seen one—it might have been Burning Empires—that seemed to want to explore Tolkien's actual themes. * There is fantasy that engages in dialogue with Tolkien (the way that Corcoran's Aristillus novels engage in dialogue with The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress). Carey's Banewreaker novels, for example, seem to be a retelling of the Silmarillion from a different moral perspective; my own current campaign, Tapestry, is about a world with multiple sapient humanoid races with different habitats (including a race of small river-dwellers who are the "shirefolk" of the setting) which is about diversity, trade, and unequal exchange and forgoes the good/evil races thing (I should note that Carey's own setting left me slightly dissatisfied in a way that contributed to Tapestry as a setting). I think that "large scale world building focused on a theme" is very much what Tolkien was about, more broadly than his particular theme and world.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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05-18-2019, 08:38 PM | #18 |
☣
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Tolkienesque Worlds or Non-Tolkienesque Worlds?
In my two perpetually WIP fantasy worlds, one has gone back and forth between human only and a couple of sapient non-humans (felinoid and reptilian, most consistently, sometimes also fae). The other has been consistently human only.
As to culture/technology, the first has most frequently been envisioned as akin to 16th century Europe, but occasionally early Republican Rome. Much more urban than Tolkien. The second is wedged somewhere between diesel punk and ocean punk. I've also put some thought into Bronze Age China, but nothing has come of it.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
05-18-2019, 10:24 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Shoreline, WA (north of Seattle)
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Re: Tolkienesque Worlds or Non-Tolkienesque Worlds?
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As to the question, I'll go either way depending on what I want to do. I've just started to dig into Glorantha, so that's kind of what's tickling my interest, but I've also always wanted to a Tolkienesque riff based on real history, though I'm not sure when in real history. Taking his themes and rough setup and finding something in Chinese history where they could work seems interesting. |
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05-18-2019, 11:17 PM | #20 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Tolkienesque Worlds or Non-Tolkienesque Worlds?
Quote:
Bill
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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