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Old 01-04-2013, 01:35 PM   #41
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Default Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy

I haven't seen the movie yet, nor am I likely to in the immediate future, but I have been re-reading The Hobbit for a series of blog posts I've been writing about the book.

Tolkien does not say anything specific about the elves' involvement in the dwarvish diaspora. In Peter Jackson's defense, it seems a reasonable inferrence that the Wood-elves of Mirkwood would not have extended much help to the refugees of Erebor and may well have turned away any who showed up on Mirkwood's borders. If the Elf-king had been as generous then as he later was to the men of Lake-town, then perhaps there wouldn't have been as much mutual suspicion between him and Thorin when the dwarves were captured by the Wood-elves.

Tolkien does state that the Elf-king had a weakness for jewels and such and his love of the bling is another reason why Thorin distrusts him, and why he distrusts the dwarves. But despite this weakness, Tolkien emphasizes, as he does whenever he mentions elves in The Hobbit, that elves are decent in nature and are in fact "the Good Folk".
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Old 01-04-2013, 01:54 PM   #42
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Do you like to have non-human races like elves, dwarves, orcs or more outré offerings in your fantasy campaigns? Personally, I'm beginning to grow more and more opposed to it.

1) Non-humans usually become "humans in funny suits" and I find it really hard to see the human in the non-human. Maybe it's because I'm bad at creating non-humans. :(

2) It tends to foster a "they're Orcs so you can kill them without mercy" attitude that I don't really like. Even worse, there's an attitude of "I'm playing an Orc so I'll kill and rape anything I come across". I'm getting less and less interested in running DF campaigns.

I don't think that quite catches my reluctance to include elves and orcs but it will do for the moment.
1) Humans imagine the characters and play the game. Of course any imaginary race you can create reflects human thoughts, ideas, and feelings.

If you do create something that seems very different in psychology from a human, it's probably unplayable or nearly so. Who really wants a cockroach or a Great Old One as a PC?

But smaller differences can go a long way.

2) Just don't use any 'always evil monster' races, then. That's simple.


That said, I don't think non-human playable races or species are necessary for fantasy. Indeed, sometimes humans-only works a lot better.

I'm running two games these days. Both use commercial settings. In both cases, I follow the written material fairly closely, in regards to races.

One is a Thieves World D20 game. All the PCs are humans, and humans are pretty nearly the only palyable race (nonhuman races exist but are very rare monsters or legends--there are no elves, dwarves, orcs, etc.). Every human culture gets its own write-up, with mechanics to model differences.


The other game is an AD&D Birthright game. The standard D&D races exist, but they are different. In BR Halflings are shadow-hopping refugees from a corrupted fairy world. Elves are more like spooky fairy tale elves than happy hippy archers. Some of them even hunt Men. Dwarves are born from the living earth-- so dense that they take half damage from blunt weapons and falls, and they can eat soft rocks.
The major human cultures get a fair amount of detail.
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Old 01-04-2013, 01:57 PM   #43
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Default Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy

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PJ does make the elves out to be jerkasses, doesn't he?
Yeah, I can almost hear his version of Agent Elrond hissing "Humans are a virus".
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Old 01-04-2013, 02:15 PM   #44
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Default Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy

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Yeah, I can almost hear his version of Agent Elrond hissing "Humans are a virus".
You probably would've enjoyed Goblin's translation of the LotR film. :)
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Old 01-04-2013, 03:53 PM   #45
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Unwritten rules and cultural assumptions are just as important to impressions as R.A.W.
That is very true, at least as long as the text in the book isn't very strongly written. And species descriptions rarely are.
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Old 01-04-2013, 04:30 PM   #46
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Default Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy

I am so sorry for bringing up that movie, I forgot it was not exactly received warmly.

On topic um on the whole all chaotic evil race thing, I never quite saw that as realistic myself, If only because I don't see how in nature how a species could survive and become sapient with such counter productive behavior. How I wonder if a being is sapient could it really be that every single individual of that race is evil. Of course I do realize D&D alignment is weird in that good and evil aren't philosophical attitudes on morality but sort of an actual tangible force.

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Old 01-04-2013, 04:57 PM   #47
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On topic um on the whole all chaotic evil race thing, I never quite saw that as realistic myself, If only because I don't see how in a nature how a species could survive and become sapient with such counter productive behavior.
Who says it's a natural species? Tolkien's orcs certainly aren't, though they aren't chaotic evil either.
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Old 01-04-2013, 08:31 PM   #48
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That is very true, at least as long as the text in the book isn't very strongly written. And species descriptions rarely are.
It would be difficult to do so: Describe "human" meaningfully but fit it on one page with room for a picture.
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Old 01-04-2013, 08:50 PM   #49
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It would be difficult to do so: Describe "human" meaningfully but fit it on one page with room for a picture.
Everybody already knows what humans are like. There is no need for a game product to give an in-depth analysis of human nature and the human condition. Not that it possibly could.


Nonhumans are simply defined by a series of physical factors in which they differ from the human norm, or psychological qualities that are exaggerated in them.
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Old 01-04-2013, 08:57 PM   #50
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e
Quote:
Originally Posted by Disliker of the mary sue View Post
I am so sorry for bringing up that movie, I forgot it was not exactly received warmly.

On topic um on the whole all chaotic evil race thing, I never quite saw that as realistic myself, If only because I don't see how in nature how a species could survive and become sapient with such counter productive behavior. How I wonder if a being is sapient could it really be that every single individual of that race is evil. Of course I do realize D&D alignment is weird in that good and evil aren't philosophical attitudes on morality but sort of an actual tangible force.

Good and evil are forces in the real world, too
. They are not merely attitudes on morality. But these moral forces are not so tangible as a general rule.


D&D alignment isn't really all that weird; it’s just simple. It simplifies and glosses real moral issues because it is meant for a fantasy adventure game, not a theological or philosophical exploration of deeper questions of good and evil.

As for 'in nature' I think that's the problem. You seem to imply that something like Tolkien's orcs would have “evolved” naturally, but in every version of their background they did not simply evolve to be evil monsters. They were corrupted from Elves or Men (corrupted Elves seems to be the most authoritative answer, but he went through multiple theories over time), created by Morgoth from the “heats and slimes of the earth”, or were maybe some kind of beasts trained to a semblance of twisted humanity. None of his versions have the orcs as a natural, unaltered race. Eru/Illuvatar (God) did not make the orcs as orcs. They are creatures twisted in some way by the power of Morgoth, the power of Evil.
Even given their murky origins, Tolkien seems to have been uncomfortable with the idea of thinking, race that was irredeemably wicked. That’s why he at one point kicked around the idea that perhaps ‘orcs are beasts’, but it doesn’t seem to have worked for him.

I’d like to point out something important from RotK(SPOILER—YOU MAY NOT WISH TO READ THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE NOVEL):



In the moment when the One Ring is destroyed and Sauron passes from Middle Earth, many of orcs and other monsters at the Black Gate go crazy, blind, or die. Tolkien explicitly compares this to ants or similar insects wigging out when the hive’s queen is killed. Sauron was to some extent controlling these creatures, calling them to him, binding them in a kind of spiritual slavery. He called evil Men to himself as well, too. His powers of seduction and domination were very great.

Maybe in the Fourth Age some orcs and other monsters are able to find at least a measure of redemption?

Last edited by combatmedic; 01-04-2013 at 09:20 PM.
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