LotR gets filtered from D&D more with each edition.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Excellent.

By 5E I'm hoping that we use almost no LotR material, that way we can have a game that isn't based on a setting that falls apart when people actually use giant eagles.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Define LOTR material if you would be so kind, please.

[Roy]

Excellent.

By 5E I'm hoping that we use almost no LotR material, that way we can have a game that isn't based on a setting that falls apart when people actually use giant eagles.

Since when can 4.Fail handle actual options?

[RandomCasualty2]

4E seems like the closest to LotR of all the editions.

[ggroy]

[Archmage]

4E seems like the closest to LotR of all the editions.

This deserves further explanation. Is it like LotR...

...because of the stories it's intended to model?
...because spellcasters don't have the power to reshape planes with their magic?
...because it's kind of low-power in general compared to 3.5e?

Because the default "points of light" non-setting doesn't actually seem LotR-ish to me at all, and the tendency for D&D to be Fantasy Kitchen Sink doesn't help either, though I suppose you could restrict people to playing humans, elves, halflings, and dwarves and you'd be able to sort of be able to actually run people through the LotR plot without it getting totally circumvented by Gandalf's player whenever he gets tired of dicking around with the whole thing.

[RandomCasualty2]

4E seems like the closest to LotR of all the editions.

This deserves further explanation. Is it like LotR...

...because of the stories it's intended to model?
...because spellcasters don't have the power to reshape planes with their magic?
...because it's kind of low-power in general compared to 3.5e?

All of the above pretty much.

Because the default "points of light" non-setting doesn't actually seem LotR-ish to me at all, and the tendency for D&D to be Fantasy Kitchen Sink doesn't help either, though I suppose you could restrict people to playing humans, elves, halflings, and dwarves and you'd be able to sort of be able to actually run people through the LotR plot without it getting totally circumvented by Gandalf's player whenever he gets tired of dicking around with the whole thing.

Yeah, in the race area, 4E has diverged a lot from the "human and metahuman races only" attitude of LotR. That it tends to borrow more from MMORPGs, where you've got these weird ass beast creatures running around town and nobody is supposed to care.

And that's very anti-LotR. It's a deviation from high fantasy in general and a move towards an over the top style where characters are less determined by personality and backstory and more so by the fact that they have giant fucking horns or look like lizardmen.

[A Man In Black]

Yeah, in the race area, 4E has diverged a lot from the "human and metahuman races only" attitude of LotR. That it tends to borrow more from MMORPGs, where you've got these weird ass beast creatures running around town and nobody is supposed to care.

And that's very anti-LotR. It's a deviation from high fantasy in general and a move towards an over the top style where characters are less determined by personality and backstory and more so by the fact that they have giant fucking horns or look like lizardmen.

It's less LOTR and more Star Wars, where a dude is a fishman and really nobody seems to notice or care. It's not necessarily an over the top style.

[CatharzGodfoot]

It's less star trek and more star wars. As far as I know LotR never had 10k types of elf.

[Prak]

It's less star trek and more star wars. As far as I know LotR never had 10k types of elf.

No, but it did have two or three, High Elves, Wood Elves, and IIRC, Uruk Hai were basically half elves or something...

[IGTN]

It's less star trek and more star wars. As far as I know LotR never had 10k types of elf.

No, but it did have two or three, High Elves, Wood Elves, and IIRC, Uruk Hai were basically half elves or something...

Uruk-Hai were, IIRC, orcs and goblin-men. Normal orcs were corrupted elves, though.

[DeadlyReed]

D&D was never much like LotR to begin with, so who cares?

[RandomCasualty2]

It's less LOTR and more Star Wars, where a dude is a fishman and really nobody seems to notice or care. It's not necessarily an over the top style.

Well it tends to be over the top when you're doing a game like D&D. In Star Wars, the aliens looked weird, but they weren't inherently violent. In D&D, the majority of monstrous looking creatures are in fact monsters that exist pretty much to eat you. There's real reason to distrust them.

[Username17]

It's less LOTR and more Star Wars, where a dude is a fishman and really nobody seems to notice or care. It's not necessarily an over the top style.

Well it tends to be over the top when you're doing a game like D&D. In Star Wars, the aliens looked weird, but they weren't inherently violent. In D&D, the majority of monstrous looking creatures are in fact monsters that exist pretty much to eat you. There's real reason to distrust them.

A majority of things with cow heads are domestic animals, not minotaurs. There is no such thing as "looking monstrous." Thri-kreen do not look like Manticores, Locathah do not look like Scorpionfolk. Kobolds are no stranger looking than Cloud Giants. Lizardfolk no more terrifying than Nerra.

Whatever species you are, the fact is that in the D&D world the vast majority of sapient creatures don't look like you do. D&D often sets itself in or near a human, elf, or dwarf majority village - but there's no reason to think any of the occupants would be shocked to see something that looked radically different - almost everything in the world is radically different looking. And indeed, having things look more human is no indicator of friendliness at all. Frost Giants are a "shit your pants" moment while blink dogs or couatl are beneficient trading partners.

Really, there are only two rational responses to the unknown in such a situation: radical isolationism or reciprocal altruism. In the first, the villagers would flip out just as much seeing a Gnome as they would seeing a Harpy. In the second the villagers would be just as open to a newly arrived Dracotaur as to a newly arrived Oread.

Someone who looks like a human, even someone who looks like whatever ethnicity of human lives in your village, could as easily be a vampire or a doppleganger. Someone who looks like a giant snake could as easily be a Couatl or a Guardian Naga. There is just no "look" that dangerous or evil things have. At all.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Most black things are evil in D&D, but I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole.

[FatR]

In DnD, If something does not look either generally humanoid, or like a mix and match of no more than two well-known nonmagical beings at a time, it probably intends to eat you. And possibly your soul too. Slime, tentacles, spikes, unpractically oversized fangs and so on are good indications of that as well. In short, you can judge by appearances.

[A Man In Black]

In DnD, If something does not look either generally humanoid, or like a mix and match of no more than two well-known nonmagical beings at a time, it probably intends to eat you. And possibly your soul too. Slime, tentacles, spikes, unpractically oversized fangs and so on are good indications of that as well. In short, you can judge by appearances.

Minotaurs, shifters, and wildren are all half-something-inoffensive, half-human, and again, they generally don't want to eat you and don't have any particular interest in your soul unless they're on mission. (*dingdong* "I have some important news for you about Pelor!")

Tieflings, minotaurs, dragonborn, half-orcs, shifters, genasi, wildren, and githzerai all have at least one of spiky/fanged/slimy some significant percentage of the time, and each of them is perfectly reasonable player-character race with a listing in the "Character races" section of a book.

So if you can judge by appearances, it's not by those rules.

[Username17]

In DnD, If something does not look either generally humanoid, or like a mix and match of no more than two well-known nonmagical beings at a time, it probably intends to eat you. And possibly your soul too. Slime, tentacles, spikes, unpractically oversized fangs and so on are good indications of that as well. In short, you can judge by appearances.

Bullshit.

Good:

Bad:

Good:

Good:

Bad:

Good:

Bad:

Good:

Bad:

Draconic Lightning Round!

Good:

Bad:

Giant Bonus Round!

Good:

Bad:

The correlations are:

• Things from deeper down are more likely to be bad.
  Things which are black or gray are more likely to be bad.

But there are of course exceptions. Cloud Giants live at the literal top of the world and are wicked bad, while Silver Dragons are all-over gray and paragons of good.

-Username17

[Koumei]

There are some guidelines to help the traveller in D&D world:

Feathery wings are more likely to be good (Celestials and Coatls, but note the Erinyes has feathery wings), whereas bat wings are usually evil (exception: I think one of the good dragons has bat wings instead of retarded looking fins).

Almost all furries are apparently good, but it can't be THAT evil to kill them with fire on principle, and there's always the minotaur and the evil sphinx.

Pretty ladies (with or without wings) are likely not actually humanoids (as in, "Hold Person" doesn't work) and are likely to be evil (Erinyes, Succubus, upper half of a Marilith, Joy Stealer) or a whole lot of trouble (any pretty-girl fey except for the JS above). But totally worth it.

Ugly human-looking things are ALSO likely to be evil (dwarfs, both flavours of Gith, bearded devils), and likely not Humanoid.

If it looks like seafood, it's extra evil, so you should kill it TWICE.

Green is bad (goblins, orcs, trolls, green dragons) unless it isn't (Celestials, Coatls... note: they're green and have feathery wings. Presumably the feather gene is stronger than the green gene). Plants are often green, and plant-people tend to be unfriendly but not necessarily evil.

Short things are evil (imps, goblins and kobolds), unfriendly (dwarfs) or annoying (halflings, dwarfs, gnomes), so you should go out of your way to kill all short things on sight. This one is an absolute rule, not a guideline. I adore mephits, but they're still guaranteed to be annoying.

And now that you're considering all this, remember that it's easy for anyone to change shape (or appear to via illusions) so nothing can be assumed to actually be what they look like anyway. Your safest bet is to genocide every single creature on the planet, ascend to godhood, then create your own species of always-friendly creatures to keep you company.

[A Man In Black]

Ugly human-looking things are ALSO likely to be evil (dwarfs, both flavours of Gith, bearded devils), and likely not Humanoid.

Dwarfs and githzerai aren't generally evil and are humanoid. Githyanki are humanoid. Most of your examples don't follow that rule. :S

[Koumei]

I thought Gith were Outsiders. Anyway, both flavours are evil even lacking the subtype: they're used as evil monsters that attack the party for daring to step into the Astral, or for existing, or whatever. Some people feel sorry for them because they used to be enslaved by the Mind Flayers, I feel sorry for everyone else that they escaped before being exterminated.

As for dwarfs, aside from the various "Like a dwarf, except evil" things (often Outsiders), you have a point, so I'll amend it to "evil or annoying". So they're a kill-on-sight again.

[RandomCasualty2]

Tieflings, minotaurs, dragonborn, half-orcs, shifters, genasi, wildren, and githzerai all have at least one of spiky/fanged/slimy some significant percentage of the time, and each of them is perfectly reasonable player-character race with a listing in the "Character races" section of a book.

The thing is that that stuff is all pretty much new, and made just to go with the new "evil is cool" edgy look they want towards D&D where people play warlocks who get their powers from the nine hells as a good guy. And that shit honestly never made much sense.

Now, yes, there have always been some exceptions in D&D, as Frank points out. But this is a numbers game, and the majority of the monstrous things are in fact out to eat you. If you guess wrong and turn away a potential trading partner, then big deal. If you guess wrong and let in something hostile, people die. So letting in a dragonborn or a tiefling may let you sell an extra longsword or inn room. It may also end up with someone's child getting turned into a meal or sacrificed to devils.

The D&D world is a dangerous place and the people are more likely to err on the side of caution.

[Koumei]

Although let's be honest: most NPC towns will in fact, upon seeing a troll, say "Oo-ar, oo-ar, that thar be an ogre" (failed Knowledge check) and run and hide, and basically let him have whatever he wants if he doesn't hurt them.

So while it's in the best interest of the PCs to kill absolutely everyone on the planet, for NPC towns, they should be used to basically letting all newcomers walk all over them, because it's not like the combined populace can take on a single manticore.

[RandomCasualty2]

Although let's be honest: most NPC towns will in fact, upon seeing a troll, say "Oo-ar, oo-ar, that thar be an ogre" (failed Knowledge check) and run and hide, and basically let him have whatever he wants if he doesn't hurt them.

So while it's in the best interest of the PCs to kill absolutely everyone on the planet, for NPC towns, they should be used to basically letting all newcomers walk all over them, because it's not like the combined populace can take on a single manticore.

Well yeah if you're talking about villages. But any kind of reasonably populated town or city will defend itself.

Villages.. well I'm honestly not even certain how they can even exist in the D&D world.

[Roy]

Although let's be honest: most NPC towns will in fact, upon seeing a troll, say "Oo-ar, oo-ar, that thar be an ogre" (failed Knowledge check) and run and hide, and basically let him have whatever he wants if he doesn't hurt them.

So while it's in the best interest of the PCs to kill absolutely everyone on the planet, for NPC towns, they should be used to basically letting all newcomers walk all over them, because it's not like the combined populace can take on a single manticore.

Well yeah if you're talking about villages. But any kind of reasonably populated town or city will defend itself.

Villages.. well I'm honestly not even certain how they can even exist in the D&D world.

I am reminded of a quote. It goes something like this.

'The kobolds have managed to make their pirate camp... mostly because the real pirates have ignored them.'

'Too weak to be worth killing' is really the only valid explanation.