Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

[DusterBoy]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

You'd have to alter gigantopithecus' gait too, unless you want ogres who are quadrupedal like gorillas

[Old Man]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

It would make them more useful as mounts...

[Lucius]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

Long ago, I ran a game where I declared that Elves were legendary and educated people didn't believe in them anymore.

 

My players still kept asking "where are the Elves?"

 

I'd have them make Streetwise rolls and if they succeed, say "you're too smart to beleive in Elves and other faerie tales."

Then I got "OKay, but where are the Elves?"

 

They never found Elves but they never stopped looking.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Found a palindromedary

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

Long ago, I ran a game where I declared that Elves were legendary and educated people didn't believe in them anymore.

 

My players still kept asking "where are the Elves?"

 

I'd have them make Streetwise rolls and if they succeed, say "you're too smart to beleive in Elves and other faerie tales."

Then I got "OKay, but where are the Elves?"

 

They never found Elves but they never stopped looking.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Found a palindromedary

 

Moral: If you can't stand elves, stay away from fantasy RPGs.

[tkdguy]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

I'll see your Komodo dragons and I'll raise you a giant prehistoric goanna.

 

Even better! Would you run it as a prehistoric campaign, or would you set it in an ancient or medieval setting? Having an "elfin world" would be interesting. And would you include magic? If so, what would the specifics be?

[Old Man]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

Seems to me it'd be easiest to run a prehistoric/lost world campaign. Take out all metal items, use shamanistic magic, fill the landscape with goannas and giant sloths. I'd play, anyway.

[Ragnarok]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

Moral: If you can't stand elves' date=' stay away from fantasy RPGs.[/quote']

 

My campaign in the works has elves, sort of. They're incredibly dangerous monsters, but elves nonetheless.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

Long ago, I ran a game where I declared that Elves were legendary and educated people didn't believe in them anymore.

 

My players still kept asking "where are the Elves?"

 

I'd have them make Streetwise rolls and if they succeed, say "you're too smart to beleive in Elves and other faerie tales."

Then I got "OKay, but where are the Elves?"

 

They never found Elves but they never stopped looking.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Found a palindromedary

 

You shouldn't have hidden them so well, then!

[Lucius]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

You shouldn't have hidden them so well' date=' then![/quote']

 

I should have had an imposter with Disguise skill and false ears run a con on them...

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary elaborates: Not a con like GenCon either...

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

I should have had an imposter with Disguise skill and false ears run a con on them...

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary elaborates: Not a con like GenCon either...

 

Nah! The players hate being scammed like that. You told them they were in a fantasy setting and failed to produce elves. For a lot of people elves are the litmus test of fantasy: "Elves = fantasy", "no elves = it ain't fantasy, it's something else." Maybe if the pre-game briefing had been more thorough?

[tkdguy]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

Next time, when the players ask where the elves are, just say they all died/left eons ago.

 

Edit: And tell them there's nothing left of their civilization, in case they decide to go looking for elven artifacts.

[Lucius]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

Unlike some people, I really do LIKE Elves. Dwarves too.

 

I just don't think they need to be in every last fantasy world.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I do think the palindromedary needs to be in every last tagline I write.

[tkdguy]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

Unlike some people, I really do LIKE Elves. Dwarves too.

 

I just don't think they need to be in every last fantasy world.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I do think the palindromedary needs to be in every last tagline I write.

 

Ditto.

[dmjalund]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

I played a Ditto once (I was annoyingly repetitive)

[tkdguy]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

I don't think the two styles of play are exclusive from each other. In one game, you can have all the Tolkien races and a bunch more besides. In another, strictly human. In yet another, something different than Tolkien rehashes but more than human.

 

My present game is human only, save for a few "behind the veil" type critters. Usually those are or will be unique characters. Have not decided if there are any defined species from the Netherrealm though. Next big campaign may have more species than you can shake a stick at. Depends entirely on my inspiration at the time of campaign genesis though.

 

I agree. Sometimes I want to run a game set in Middle-earth, so the players can have elf and dwarf characters if they wish. Other times I feel like running a Hyborian Age game, so the characters are all human. Variety is the spice of life.

 

Nah! The players hate being scammed like that. You told them they were in a fantasy setting and failed to produce elves. For a lot of people elves are the litmus test of fantasy: "Elves = fantasy"' date=' "no elves = it ain't fantasy, it's something else." Maybe if the pre-game briefing had been more thorough?[/quote']

 

I was like that for many years. All my campaigns had elves in them; some of them were even seen from the elven point of view. My tastes have changed in recent years, going from high fantasy to low fantasy.

 

One idea I had was having all the nonhuman races being integrated into humanity in order to avoid extinction. So everyone is human, but some would have elven or troll ancestry. Maybe it's apparent in their physical appearance, even if most people don't recognize elves or trolls any more. And I do meet people who remind me of elves, trolls, or orcs once in a while.

[AlHazred]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

One idea I had was having all the nonhuman races being integrated into humanity in order to avoid extinction. So everyone is human' date=' but some would have elven or troll ancestry. Maybe it's apparent in their physical appearance, even if most people don't recognize elves or trolls any more. And I do meet people who remind me of elves, trolls, or orcs once in a while. [/quote']You might consider a couple of good literature sources for such "watered-down" elves and such.

 

Jack Vance's Lyonesse series had people with varying degrees of faerie blood descended from either trolls or elves or what-have-you (since those were all faerie creatures). The humans and hybrids got into enough trouble on their own, without full-blooded types mucking things up even further. Not that this is a low-fantasy setting at all, but it makes for a good High Fantasy counterexample to Tolkien, since the most important characters are pure human for the most part (plus one cast-out faerie girl-child).

 

Glen Cook's Garrett P.I. series is hard to define. It's not fantasy literature, really -- it's hard-boiled gritty detective fiction set in a fantasy setting. There are tons of fantasy races but, again, most of the interesting stuff is set in motion and maintained by humans and hybrids.

 

It's an interesting exercise, and one maybe worthy of its own thread: a campaign developed to incorporate High Fantasy touches, but in a Low Fantasy setting, situations and power levels. If it's an Urban Fantasy game, PCs can play humans who've tumbled onto the existence of the Semiotic War, or characters who've been touched by one of the Symbols involved: Magic (in which case they have mildly elf-like traits), Might (orc-like), and so on. PCs start at the low end of the scale (125 points tops) and the packages are all 25 points or less. I'd use a Skill Roll magic system, too, so that players don't learn spells with points -- if spells exist that still work in the modern era, they're extremely unpredictable, powerful, and knowledge of them is kept limited.

 

Might be worth a new thread for a Forum-developed campaign setting.

[tkdguy]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

The campaign can be about the PCs (among others) finding out about their secret heritage, like in Changeling, The Dreaming.

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

One idea I had was having all the nonhuman races being integrated into humanity in order to avoid extinction. So everyone is human' date=' but some would have elven or troll ancestry.[/quote']

 

I'm working on a background where the reverse of this is true. Many thousands of years before the campaign started, there were only humans. Then a wizard on the losing end of a war cast a powerful curse that slowly (over the course of generations) transformed his people into the fecund-but-short-lived orcs, and his enemies into the immortal-but-sterile elves. All of the other demi-humans and humanoids are either the side-effects of the curse or attempts to mitigate it.

[Steve]

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply!

 

I'm working on a background where the reverse of this is true. Many thousands of years before the campaign started' date=' there were only humans. Then a wizard on the losing end of a war cast a powerful curse that slowly (over the course of generations) transformed his people into the fecund-but-short-lived orcs, and his enemies into the immortal-but-sterile elves. All of the other demi-humans and humanoids are either the side-effects of the curse or attempts to mitigate it.[/quote']

 

I had the idea that a group of humans attempted to "purify" themselves of their animal natures with a spell, resulting in the creation of refined, cultural "elves" and barbaric, brutal "orcs." The two have hated each other ever since.

 

Both types are variant humans, so half-breeds with normal humans are also possible. If an elf and an orc ever bred in this setting, the result would be an ordinary human.