Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

How Will WOTC New Approach to Races Effect the Future CRPG?

JamesDixon

GM Extraordinaire
Patron
Dumbfuck
Joined
Jul 29, 2015
Messages
11,178
Location
In the ether
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
As far as I know Michael created it with the rest of the Cthulhu writers as Elric is part of the mythos. I can only speak of where Gary got his ideas from. I make no further claims beyond what he said. If you have a problem with it then get a medium to contact him in the afterlife to explain why he chose the things he did.

You're missing the point. Law vs Chaos and Good vs Evil weren't copyrighted by Moorcock.

Nobody is claiming that he did copyright it. Only you did to win an internet argument against the creator of D&D. Did I mention that said creator is dead so your entire argument with him is moot?
 

Humbaba

Arcane
Joined
Aug 12, 2021
Messages
2,939
Location
SADAT HQ
Did people forget the difference between race and species around the same time they forgot the meaning of "literal", or was it before?

Around the same time Americans decided to make the whole world suffer for their own racism and thus created wokism. I remember when sharters got mad at Indians for selling skin whitening creme, although that had nothing to do with racism whatsoever. Just wait until they find out why geishas paint their faces white.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
These are quotes from Gary Gygax himself. I'm not making shit up here.

Well he's wrong.

He's the guy who literally invented D&D so how can he be wrong about what influenced D&D to which degree and what didn't. He fucking wrote it. If he says "nah I wasn't influenced by Tolkien to a significant degree, those other fantasy authors I will now list were more influential on me" then he's probably right.

Whether you agree with his view on Tolkien or not is of no relevance here. I too think that he's a bit too harsh on LotR, he misunderstands how magic works in Middle Earth, but his views on LotR still influenced D&D and meant that he consciously went for the other tradition of fantasy literature: the low fantasy born in American pulps, rather than the high fantasy born in Tolkien's works. Those are two separate traditions of fantasy literature that developed independently of each other. Not all fantasy springs directly from LotR... in fact, LotR appeared at a time when fantasy literature had already been a thing for decades. It was published in the 50s... the American pulps with writers like R. E. Howard and C. A. Smith had their heyday in the 30s and 40s. And those in turn took inspiration from 19th century adventure novels, from the early fantasy work of Lord Dunsany (who also inspired Tolkien IIRC), and from early modern picaresques.

The line of development from picaresque -> adventure novel -> sword & sorcery -> D&D is a lot more coherent than the one from LotR -> D&D.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,474
Location
Frostfell
The drow can procreate with humans. Half-elves in general and half-drow in particular are a thing. The offspring don't even seem infertile. So yes, the drow are underground elves just like real life blacks are jungle humans (the drow also don't just live underground).

Dragpons, Demons, Devils, Fey,(...) too can reproduce with humans

At 36th level the characters are essentially gods and can destroy the world if they wanted too

This is not truth. Lv 36 is when you can attempt to become a Immortal in Mystara and Karsus was lv 41 once he attempted the Karsus avatar spell. High level characters still very weak compared to Gods.

It's because all Americans are inherently retarded

Is because many neo marxists from Frankfurt school moved to USA.
 

JamesDixon

GM Extraordinaire
Patron
Dumbfuck
Joined
Jul 29, 2015
Messages
11,178
Location
In the ether
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
The drow can procreate with humans. Half-elves in general and half-drow in particular are a thing. The offspring don't even seem infertile. So yes, the drow are underground elves just like real life blacks are jungle humans (the drow also don't just live underground).

Dragpons, Demons, Devils, Fey,(...) too can reproduce with humans

At 36th level the characters are essentially gods and can destroy the world if they wanted too

This is not truth. Lv 36 is when you can attempt to become a Immortal in Mystara and Karsus was lv 41 once he attempted the Karsus avatar spell. High level characters still very weak compared to Gods.

It's because all Americans are inherently retarded

Is because many neo marxists from Frankfurt school moved to USA.

I never played Basic D&D, so I acquiesce to your knowledge. I only played AD&D 1&2E. However, I did paraphrase was Tim Kask said on why they never statted up the gods.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
These are quotes from Gary Gygax himself. I'm not making shit up here.

Well he's wrong.

He's the guy who literally invented D&D so how can he be wrong about what influenced D&D to which degree and what didn't. He fucking wrote it. If he says "nah I wasn't influenced by Tolkien to a significant degree, those other fantasy authors I will now list were more influential on me" then he's probably right.

Whether you agree with his view on Tolkien or not is of no relevance here. I too think that he's a bit too harsh on LotR, he misunderstands how magic works in Middle Earth, but his views on LotR still influenced D&D and meant that he consciously went for the other tradition of fantasy literature: the low fantasy born in American pulps, rather than the high fantasy born in Tolkien's works. Those are two separate traditions of fantasy literature that developed independently of each other. Not all fantasy springs directly from LotR... in fact, LotR appeared at a time when fantasy literature had already been a thing for decades. It was published in the 50s... the American pulps with writers like R. E. Howard and C. A. Smith had their heyday in the 30s and 40s. And those in turn took inspiration from 19th century adventure novels, from the early fantasy work of Lord Dunsany (who also inspired Tolkien IIRC), and from early modern picaresques.

The line of development from picaresque -> adventure novel -> sword & sorcery -> D&D is a lot more coherent than the one from LotR -> D&D.
It was influenced by tolkin,the fat faggot cuck lies lol. If it have tall blond elfs with long ears,it is influenced by lotkin. That image of elfs have nothing to do with mythologic and folk tales. Also the fat fag cuck shaped the original state of the D&D as he was the "creator" more like plagiarist. But later on it get influenced by players,feed back and interest in profits.

Generally speaking,it is no surprise that it ends up as tranny sjw corner. Religious people 30 years ago were pretty accurate with their description of those people. Young fucks were just butthurt to head their arguments.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.

Not really.

gary-gygax-and-the-summer-of-76.jpg
 

communard

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2012
Messages
1,379
Location
a gay mans ass
If it have tall blond elfs with long ears,it is influenced by lotkin. That image of elfs have nothing to do with mythologic and folk tales.

While your first statement is generally correct the second is just wrong. Tolkien probably based his elves on the ljosalfar in the Edda.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
If it have tall blond elfs with long ears,it is influenced by lotkin. That image of elfs have nothing to do with mythologic and folk tales.

While your first statement is generally correct the second is just wrong. Tolkien probably based his elves on the ljosalfar in the Edda.
Hmm well in way yeah. It was influenced by it,but from what i remember they were never described as tall and pointy ears,they were fair,which could mean a lot. That aside in most folklore elfs are never really good,even when they do benevolent acts they end up fucking up people because they don't get it. In most mythology they are pretty nasty little creatures that do evil shit like eating and raping babies and such. It is pretty interesting how nearly all cultures around the world have a creature that takes your child and changes it with some doppelganger creature that is evil.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
The ironic thing about making all races equal stat wise, is that it will no longer be any point from a game mechanics POV to run a "diversity squad". If all races and both sexes are the same, I can just as well just run a party of male humans.
So making the races equal will (in my case, at least) reduce diversity.

It'll certainly reduce the diversity in my game library...
Let's see if the diversity squad buy their shitty games, because i won't.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,131
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
The line of development from picaresque -> adventure novel -> sword & sorcery -> D&D is a lot more coherent than the one from LotR -> D&D.

Because he's human. People forget, embeliish, have motivated reasoning, the whole rigamarole.

It's not an either/or dumbass. Tolkien was influenced by a lot of that himself. That's where he started then all the Philology coloured it.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,131
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
If it have tall blond elfs with long ears,it is influenced by lotkin. That image of elfs have nothing to do with mythologic and folk tales.

While your first statement is generally correct the second is just wrong. Tolkien probably based his elves on the ljosalfar in the Edda.

And Ancient Rome and all the Doggerland stuff. And you know simple faeries. There were many influences.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
The line of development from picaresque -> adventure novel -> sword & sorcery -> D&D is a lot more coherent than the one from LotR -> D&D.

Because he's human. People forget, embeliish, have motivated reasoning, the whole rigamarole.

It's not an either/or dumbass. Tolkien was influenced by a lot of that himself. That's where he started then all the Philology coloured it.
Well people are getting influenced since the time of greek mythos. Curious from where did they get influenced,but that is another discussion. Generally people read things from the past and get influenced by it. It doesn't have to be a production like like jarl's example,it could be combination of influences.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,759
I like to make the priest/healer a woman, She's also eye-candy for the party.
Female clerics are a venerable D&D tradition:
DD%20BECMI%20B%20Aleena%201.png
DD%20BECMI%20B%20Aleena%202.png
DD%20BECMI%20B%20Cleric.png
DD%20DL5%20Goldmoon.png
DD%20PHBR3%20Cleric.png
DD%20DL%20Flight%20from%20Darkenwood.png


Okay... I guess Gary was doing it wrong when he wrote that most adventurers should retire at 7th level and the players roll up new characters. The Holmes Basic Set only went to level 3. The supplement went to level 6. They kept adding to it to increase the level limit, but Gary always stopped his games at level 7. Your character was supposed to retire and building a building suitable to their profession like castles for fighters.
Gary Gygax wrote most of his AD&D adventure modules for characters with levels of approximately 8 to 12. This started with the trio of Giants modules (G1-G3), which were the very first modules published by TSR and had pre-generated characters ranging from levels 9 to 14(!), followed by the trio of Drow modules (D1-D3) that were intended to be pursued by the same party that had just completed the Giants modules. Similar level ranges were expected for S1 Tomb of Horrors (6 to 14), S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (8 to 12), S4 The Lost Cavern of Tsojcanth (slightly lower at 6 to 10), WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun (8 to 10), EX1 Dungeonland (9 to 12), EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (9 to 12), and WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure (9 to 12). WG6 Isle of the Ape was substantially higher, with a level range of 14 to 19.

The two low-level exceptions written by Gygax were B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, written as an introductory adventure for non-advanced D&D, and T1-T4 The Temple of Elemental Evil, written as relatively fast way for a new party (not necessarily new players), to advance to at least 8th level, at which point they would be ready for the kind of adventures preferred by Gygax. Note that Gary did not prefer truly high-level adventures, with characters far in advance of name level; in his view a party with levels 10 to 14 was sufficient to defeat Lolth in her own plane (Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, written by artist David C. Sutherland III as the conclusion to the G and D series). However, he certainly didn't prefer low-level adventures, either.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,474
Location
Frostfell
Gary Gygax wrote most of his AD&D adventure modules for characters with levels of approximately 8 to 12.

Yep. But for some people here, D&D should be only lv 1~4 rat slaying aka Dungeons & Kobolds. In video games, the best adventures are high level(MoTB for nwn2, HotU for nwn1) however, in tabletop, the best modules are mid levels.
 
Joined
Sep 18, 2013
Messages
1,258
I liked how Arcanum tackled the subject by despicting fantasy races according to the sensibilities of Victorian Science, which actually had some quite interesting conclusions:

- Pretty much every humanoid race comes from humans, giants or ogres I think?
- Elves being "an ancient race before man" was total bullshit brohistory the elves themselves believed to make themselves look better, elves came later and evolved from human stock.

I don't remember any of this in the game? What?
 
Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
4,012
These are quotes from Gary Gygax himself. I'm not making shit up here.

Well he's wrong.

He's the guy who literally invented D&D so how can he be wrong about what influenced D&D to which degree and what didn't. He fucking wrote it. If he says "nah I wasn't influenced by Tolkien to a significant degree, those other fantasy authors I will now list were more influential on me" then he's probably right.

Whether you agree with his view on Tolkien or not is of no relevance here. I too think that he's a bit too harsh on LotR, he misunderstands how magic works in Middle Earth, but his views on LotR still influenced D&D and meant that he consciously went for the other tradition of fantasy literature: the low fantasy born in American pulps, rather than the high fantasy born in Tolkien's works. Those are two separate traditions of fantasy literature that developed independently of each other. Not all fantasy springs directly from LotR... in fact, LotR appeared at a time when fantasy literature had already been a thing for decades. It was published in the 50s... the American pulps with writers like R. E. Howard and C. A. Smith had their heyday in the 30s and 40s. And those in turn took inspiration from 19th century adventure novels, from the early fantasy work of Lord Dunsany (who also inspired Tolkien IIRC), and from early modern picaresques.

The line of development from picaresque -> adventure novel -> sword & sorcery -> D&D is a lot more coherent than the one from LotR -> D&D.


It sounds like Gygax wasn't all that into LotR, which is probably why he downplayed it. I remember seeing something about how he wanted it to be Conan the Barbarian stuff, but the others were into LotR way more, so he was kind of begrudgingly forced to make it LotR because that's what the others wanted.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,320
It sounds like Gygax wasn't all that into LotR, which is probably why he downplayed it. I remember seeing something about how he wanted it to be Conan the Barbarian stuff, but the others were into LotR way more, so he was kind of begrudgingly forced to make it LotR because that's what the others wanted.

Pretty sure he liked The Hobbit and found LotR boring? Least thats what I remember reading somewhere.
 
Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
4,012
I liked how Arcanum tackled the subject by despicting fantasy races according to the sensibilities of Victorian Science, which actually had some quite interesting conclusions:

- Pretty much every humanoid race comes from humans, giants or ogres I think?
- Elves being "an ancient race before man" was total bullshit brohistory the elves themselves believed to make themselves look better, elves came later and evolved from human stock.

I don't remember any of this in the game? What?

Clearly you did not read the newspaper style website for the game when it was new. This stuff is in the game as well, but it was also in the advertising material for the game before it came out.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Gary Gygax said:
I guess it’s no secret that I am not a rabid fan of the “Rings Trilogy,” so that should explain a good bit of why elves in D&D are more my conception of them than they are copies after what the Good Professor Tolkien saw them as ;-) My take was more of the British mythology based, with French “feys” the influence for the high elves.
 

Fedora Master

Arcane
Patron
Edgy
Joined
Jun 28, 2017
Messages
27,819
The cosmology of most DnD settings presupposes and mechanically supports alignment as real tangible natural forces.

So if Wokezards wants to get rid of "Always Chaotic Evil" races they'd have to kill most of their settings.
 

Ismaul

Thought Criminal #3333
Patron
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Messages
1,871,807
Location
On Patroll
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech A Beautifully Desolate Campaign My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
new orcs wont be evil, just leaning right while elves go left
But that won't do. For the woke leftists, the right is evil.

The only solution really is for all races to become leftists. And then we can finally have fictional world peace.

The D&D ruleset will then no longer be needed, as combat rules become obsolete. Maybe we'll replace them with the more relevant polyamory rules of engagement and drama conflict resolution.

Such a bright future for D&D!
 

JamesDixon

GM Extraordinaire
Patron
Dumbfuck
Joined
Jul 29, 2015
Messages
11,178
Location
In the ether
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
I like to make the priest/healer a woman, She's also eye-candy for the party.
Female clerics are a venerable D&D tradition:
DD%20BECMI%20B%20Aleena%201.png
DD%20BECMI%20B%20Aleena%202.png
DD%20BECMI%20B%20Cleric.png
DD%20DL5%20Goldmoon.png
DD%20PHBR3%20Cleric.png
DD%20DL%20Flight%20from%20Darkenwood.png


Okay... I guess Gary was doing it wrong when he wrote that most adventurers should retire at 7th level and the players roll up new characters. The Holmes Basic Set only went to level 3. The supplement went to level 6. They kept adding to it to increase the level limit, but Gary always stopped his games at level 7. Your character was supposed to retire and building a building suitable to their profession like castles for fighters.
Gary Gygax wrote most of his AD&D adventure modules for characters with levels of approximately 8 to 12. This started with the trio of Giants modules (G1-G3), which were the very first modules published by TSR and had pre-generated characters ranging from levels 9 to 14(!), followed by the trio of Drow modules (D1-D3) that were intended to be pursued by the same party that had just completed the Giants modules. Similar level ranges were expected for S1 Tomb of Horrors (6 to 14), S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (8 to 12), S4 The Lost Cavern of Tsojcanth (slightly lower at 6 to 10), WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun (8 to 10), EX1 Dungeonland (9 to 12), EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (9 to 12), and WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure (9 to 12). WG6 Isle of the Ape was substantially higher, with a level range of 14 to 19.

The two low-level exceptions written by Gygax were B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, written as an introductory adventure for non-advanced D&D, and T1-T4 The Temple of Elemental Evil, written as relatively fast way for a new party (not necessarily new players), to advance to at least 8th level, at which point they would be ready for the kind of adventures preferred by Gygax. Note that Gary did not prefer truly high-level adventures, with characters far in advance of name level; in his view a party with levels 10 to 14 was sufficient to defeat Lolth in her own plane (Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, written by artist David C. Sutherland III as the conclusion to the G and D series). However, he certainly didn't prefer low-level adventures, either.

Yes, he did write adventures for up to level 14 for publication. At his table though, characters were retired by the time they were 7th-9th level. That's been confirmed by his own players like Tim Kask. You can easily separate what he wrote for publication and what was written for his table.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom