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Evard
2009-12-12, 10:19 PM
Sooo is there any good ones out there that are easy to use? I still want the fantasy arcane/divine magic along with a good melee system but i dont like the strict stereotypes of the Tolkien fantasy setting...

jmbrown
2009-12-12, 10:42 PM
What do you consider Tolkien stereotypes? Marauding orcs and jerkish elves? Because D&D isn't genre neutral and campaign settings vary wildly in style.

With that said, GURPS is a generic system that can be adapted to anything, Burning Wheel is a good system but it uses more abstraction than D&D so good storytelling is paramount, and Riddle of Steel has one of the better martial RPG combat systems but you may find the arcane/divine aspect lacking.

Temet Nosce
2009-12-12, 11:26 PM
Sooo is there any good ones out there that are easy to use? I still want the fantasy arcane/divine magic along with a good melee system but i dont like the strict stereotypes of the Tolkien fantasy setting...

Exalted. It was built with specifically this in mind (to the point where they refused to use certain terms in it). The system is mildly annoying (it's White Wolf) but the flavor is good (I particularly enjoy the sorcery in it - things like destroying an entire nation down to the very memory of its name).

Bagelz
2009-12-13, 12:09 AM
What exactly do you mean by non-tolkien. As in no orcs/elves/dwarves? Or just not the stereo types that tolkien flavor applies to those races?

you are pretty much limited to your imagination.

most pencil and paper systems are flexable enough that you can apply any setting you would like to them. d20 open gaming licence has been applied to everquest, world of warcraft, mutants and masterminds, world of darkness, call of cthulu, and countless others. GURPS is a Generic Universal Role Playing System, so you can certainly play a fantasy setting with that.
You could use the World of Darkness rules in a fantasy setting (they had a couple medieval source books a few years back). I've heard good things about exalted, feng shui, a game of thrones, and warhammer fantasy, but haven't played them myself.

I ran an Earthsea dnd 3.5 campaign. There are only humans, no pantheon, profession (sailing) was actually useful.
eberron and dark sun settings for dnd are quite different in flavor and style

The only things i would stay away from are hackmaster, and first edition dnd and games specifically taylored to futuristic technology (just because that would be extra work)

Aron Times
2009-12-13, 12:35 AM
Eberron is definitely not Tolkienish. It's basically set during a magical Cold War between nations, except in Eberron, nobody knows who nuked Cyre. Imagine what the world would be like after the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima if nobody claimed responsibility for it. That's what Eberron is like.

Draxar
2009-12-13, 02:53 AM
Eberron is definitely not Tolkienish. It's basically set during a magical Cold War between nations, except in Eberron, nobody knows who nuked Cyre. Imagine what the world would be like after the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima if nobody claimed responsibility for it. That's what Eberron is like.

However it still has Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Dragons, behaving broadly according to the stereotypes which have grown from Tolkien.



Exalted. It was built with specifically this in mind (to the point where they refused to use certain terms in it). The system is mildly annoying (it's White Wolf) but the flavor is good (I particularly enjoy the sorcery in it - things like destroying an entire nation down to the very memory of its name).

This. It's strongly influenced by eastern mythology and stylings, but still has it's own approach., has a very detailed, very not-tolkien setting.

Xuincherguixe
2009-12-13, 03:49 AM
Shadowrun is kind of a subversion here. People will assume your a racist if you think the Ork is about to shoot you in the head.

... Even if it does.

But at the same time, it's not like those sorts of elements aren't there. It is however a lot less one dimensional about everything.

It's a good system for if you have a lot of imagination. But everyone's experiences are a little different.

It's basically the world of the future, but for some reason elves are running around. There's Human Supremacists, Elf Posers, Troll Thrash Metal, Dragons that get elected president and arrange to be assassinated. Loads of fun if you get a good game master.

Altair_the_Vexed
2009-12-13, 04:49 AM
d20 Conan is very non-Tolkien (obviously).

The basic d20 system isn't nearly as Tolkien as some people seem to think. It only has the Tolkienish bit added in because they were really popular at the time it was being written, really. Gygax didn't really like LotR.

You could always just throw out elves, dwarves and halflings, and orcs, goblins, trolls and dragons - or anything else you find too Tolkieny - from any system you feel otherwise comfortable with.

Anonymouswizard
2009-12-13, 05:44 AM
I ran an Earthsea dnd 3.5 campaign. There are only humans, no pantheon, profession (sailing) was actually useful.

Can I get the system you used for magic? I would like to see how balance and the language of the making were incorporated into the setting in a balanced way.

But non Tolkien: stick to the system you like best, remove all Tolkien that you don't wnat and roll. Or Vance. or whoever. If a wanted to play a non-Tolkien D&D campaign, I would remove elves and Halflings, make dwarves primarily women, and let gnomes run wild with whatever magic they see fit. Orcs would be lawful good, and psionics would be the primary magic system. Or even Vancian magic: invocations is more like LotR magic, it just needs a fatigue system with points built into the game.

Totally Guy
2009-12-13, 05:56 AM
Burning Wheel is a good system but it uses more abstraction than D&D so good storytelling is paramount

That's my system of choice but Non-Tolkien? I find that a big selling point of the system is the way in which Orcs, Elves and Dwarves actually play like Tolkien's representations rather than being "A bonus here, a penalty there".

You could play with humans only, or a game using Rodens (rat men types) from the Monster burner. A campaign where everyone's a wolf or a giant spider? Totally do-able but I'm not sure how appealing that is.

bosssmiley
2009-12-13, 08:51 AM
Tekumel: Empire of the Petal Throne (arguably the first ever 'D&D' setting) is avowedly non-Tolkien. It's basically a regressed far future pocket universe with seven or eight non-human races...

Arduin (home of the Phraints) or Majestic Wilderlands offer you overtly D&D-derived worlds with the option of switching in non-Tolkienian races.

Dark Sun retains the Tolkien races, but subverts the cliches extra hard (Fremen Elves, OCD dwarves, cannibal halflings, Thri-Kreen hunters, etc.)

You could just tinker with the cliches yourself.

Or you could embrace the Tolkish Northern-ness of it all and go hog wild with the idea of Wagnerian dwarves, yokel hobbits, and immortal elven warriors fighting a long defeat. Cliche only remains cliche if you don't put the effort in yourself.

Gamerlord
2009-12-13, 09:07 AM
Sooo is there any good ones out there that are easy to use? I still want the fantasy arcane/divine magic along with a good melee system but i dont like the strict stereotypes of the Tolkien fantasy setting...

Then just say "There are no X in my campaign setting" or "They behave like x".

Aptera
2009-12-13, 09:49 AM
Well, there is Glorantha. On first glance it can appear to look like a Tolkieneasque world, but it really isn't. Yeah it has elves and dwarve, and trolls, but they're so different I don't think its very comparable. Elves are actually plants devoted to eventually making the forests grow to cover the world, dwarves are stone and believe this world is 'broken' and must be fixed, and trolls have an extremely developed world view which is very different from humans.

Plus, Glorantha's basic assumptions are really different then Tolkien's. in Glorantha everything is based off myth, especially the parts that contradict. it is true that the Orlanth the Storm king killed The Sun, and it is also true that Orlanth killed the son of the sun and the Sun went to underworld because his heart was broken. And it is also true that the Sun is the king of evil in the world, who curses all of the good things who try to live in it. All of these are true in Glorantha, even the last myth which comes from the trolls, and in most fantasy would just be evil. There is no one truth. Plus things happen not because of the scientific laws of our world, but because the myths say they do. Glorantha is a cube floating on top of water above the underworld.

AslanCross
2009-12-13, 10:07 AM
However it still has Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Dragons, behaving broadly according to the stereotypes which have grown from Tolkien.


Maybe the dwarves, but the rest?

The Elves are either Mongols, Haitian voodoo priests, or cosmopolitan. I don't see any trace of Tolkien in them other than that they're elves.

The orcs are a vanishing druidic culture dedicated to balancing the world and protecting it from alien forces of insanity. That's about as far from Tolkien as it can get, unless if in some cosmology they're noble beings descended from angels.

The Dragons are very much unlike Tolkien's dragons even in generic D&D. Tolkien's dragons were all evil (or at least the famous ones were). They were bred for war. The first dragon, who gets the most screen time, was as much a corrupting force as he was a destructive one.

Eberron's dragons cover a very broad spectrum. If they're from Argonnessen, they tend to be aloof scholars of magic and the Draconic Prophecy with a civilized society, army, and ruling council. If they're from Khorvaire, they tend to be renegades and/or infiltrators in regular humanoid society. If they're on Xen'drik, they tend to be very eccentric and/or bored. They only end up in their traditional "monster at the end of the dungeon" in Sarlona.

Ravens_cry
2009-12-13, 10:11 AM
Bunnies and Barrows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunnies_&_Burrows) anyone?
Your playing. . .as rabbits. Not at all anthropomorphic, and only as human minded as is needful in a game played played by humans.
Still, as one who read, and loved, Watership Down, the idea certainly appeals to me.

snoopy13a
2009-12-13, 10:21 AM
There's also the option of using D&D rules and creating your own campaign setting.

Want goblins to be the heroes? go for it (although that has become a cliche as well :smalltongue: )

Don't like Dwarves/Hobbits/Elves? Write them out or make them the villians

Want to add a new race? Make one up. Either substitute it for an existing race (same benefits/disadvantages) or stat it from scratch.

jmbrown
2009-12-13, 10:55 AM
That's my system of choice but Non-Tolkien? I find that a big selling point of the system is the way in which Orcs, Elves and Dwarves actually play like Tolkien's representations rather than being "A bonus here, a penalty there".

You could play with humans only, or a game using Rodens (rat men types) from the Monster burner. A campaign where everyone's a wolf or a giant spider? Totally do-able but I'm not sure how appealing that is.

To an extent but I never found it too noticeable.

robertsconley
2009-12-13, 11:02 AM
Or you could embrace the Tolkish Northern-ness of it all and go hog wild with the idea of Wagnerian dwarves, yokel hobbits, and immortal elven warriors fighting a long defeat. Cliche only remains cliche if you don't put the effort in yourself.

Agree.

I embrace the Tolkien mythology even more firmly then D&D itself bit I also subvert it by extrapolating the consequences from the premises I set for the Elves and other races.

The main problem of the Elves in the Majestic Wilderlands is that they nearly always look at the long view. It serves them well in some cases but in other it causes them to give ground in the face of shorter lived but more dynamic races and cultures. Because the Elves have a heavy influence on the cultures in their immediate surrounding when this approach goes sour it effects more than just the elves themselves.

Plus when things to do sour, the Elves being free-willed sentient people react to it in a variety of ways, some of which make for a good backdrop for adventuring .

My personal recommendation to people starting up a new campaign setting is take a good hard look at having fewer races but many cultures. If having many races is what you want then it will work. But I have just as much variety with a party consist of a Tharian Horse Lord, a Ghinorian Paladin, an Elessarian Druid, Silvani Mage, and Beggar thief. All of them are human cultures in my setting and each with a very different outlook on life.

erikun
2009-12-13, 11:07 AM
I'll have to second that Burning Wheel is quite Tolkienish. That's part of the appeal - how well though out and designed the Humans are from the Dwarves from the Elves from the Orcs. Sure, you could play a very non-Tolkien setting, but if designing your own setting was the goal than any system would work, even D&D.

Eberron and Ravenloft are to D&D settings which are very non-Tolkien, and both available in 3.5e flavors. There are many more settings too - Dark Sun, Planescape, Spelljammer - but they weren't really supported in 3.5e.

Shadowrun has Orcs and Elves, but is about as unTolkien as you can get. Pretty much everything is parody or cyberpunk, with elves being the upstuck prissy boys and dwarves the corporate sharks.

World of Darkness can work, especially when leaning towards Changling or Mage. It's geared towards the modern day world, but there are splatbooks for more medieval settings. Of course, there is also Scion or Exalted, but that is more epic-level craziness (especially Exalted).

I'm not sure how well your group would take to it, but Ironclaw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironclaw) is a pretty good system, once you get used to it. The setting is very medieval europe, complete with noble houses, serf classes, and "foreign" outsiders. There isn't much in the way of published support material, though, outside of the companion Jadeclaw.

[EDIT] While I haven't tried it myself, I feel compelled to mention Warhammer as well. No opinion on it myself.

Tyndmyr
2009-12-14, 02:01 PM
I'd like to second the idea of creating a custom setting in D&D/D20. Doing that myself, actually, and subverting the stock race steriotypes is definitely going to happen(link in sig). If I see another elf in another enchanted forest, I'm going to have pointy ears around my neck.

Eberron is good for non standard as well, and 7th Sea is excellent for non-tolkien fantasy. Im sure more systems are as well, but those are my personal favorites.

JonestheSpy
2009-12-14, 02:13 PM
However it still has Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Dragons, behaving broadly according to the stereotypes which have grown from Tolkien.



Just reminder to all you younguns who never studied your mythology: Tolkien's portrayals of elves, dragons, etc were based very much on centuries and or/millinia of stories from folklore and myths. Obviously, he tweaked things to fit inot his own history of Middle Earth, and the orcs that evolved from his goblins are pretty much his own creation so as to give the villains material for their armies, but really a more correct title for this thread would be "Non-Northern European Mythology Pencil and Paper Games".

cZak
2009-12-14, 02:18 PM
Non d20?

The Deadlands system by PEG Inc was a very interesting setting. Based in the Wild West days circa 1800's(?). There was a follow on for a futuristic setting, too; after the 'Bomb'...

Still had magic, but was powered by spirits; Indian magic was based on ancestral spirits or Hucksters based on 'malevolent' spirits.

Then there was the 'steam-punkish' crafters (can't remember exactly).

It was a fairly fun system using non-traditional resources, decks of cards were the main method of determining effects.

But, no orcs, elves or dragons...

dsmiles
2009-12-14, 02:19 PM
Palladium Fantasy RPG is non-Tolkein-esque, what with orc, troglodyte, and troll pc's and all.

Also, HARP is cool.

If you want superheroes, Palladium's Ninjas and Superspies or Heroes Unlimited or Hero System's Champions.

For a darker atmosphere, Call of Cthulhu is always fun.

sonofzeal
2009-12-14, 02:29 PM
However it still has Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Dragons, behaving broadly according to the stereotypes which have grown from Tolkien.
Really?

- Eberron "Hobbits" (halflings) are dinosaur-riding tribal barbarians

- Eberron Elves are ruthless amoral expansionists.

- Eberron Orcs are stewards and guardians of the natural world.



.....doesn't seem very Tolkien at all.

Dracomorph
2009-12-14, 03:52 PM
Just reminder to all you younguns who never studied your mythology: Tolkien's portrayals of elves, dragons, etc were based very much on centuries and or/millinia of stories from folklore and myths. Obviously, he tweaked things to fit inot his own history of Middle Earth, and the orcs that evolved from his goblins are pretty much his own creation so as to give the villains material for their armies, but really a more correct title for this thread would be "Non-Northern European Mythology Pencil and Paper Games".

Whose elves?

Seriously, that's a legitimate question, especially when asked about elves. In various cultures, they were everything from flowery little pixies to nasty little buggers that spoiled the milk and stole babies. If you count all the Fair Folk under elves, it's even weirder because then there's also the ones that are basically supernatural humans with funny names. Elves and goblins and kobolds and even trolls overlap quite a bit, and depending on which part of Europe you were in, the same mythical creature might go by any of those names. And then there's the overlap between elves and dwarves in norse mythos, where dwarves were actually called "dark elves". Not all elves were pretty or kind, and the myths concerning them vary incredibly wildly.

So, to a greater degree than he adhered to them, I'd say Tolkien diverged from the myths. Part of that was his imposing binary morality on a body of folklore that was less "black-grey-white" than "rainbow of colors," and part of that was that he needed things to fit a certain overall story that worked very differently.

Certainly, orcs as commonly portrayed are his own invention, though. None of the goblins he drew from ever really had an army to speak of.

Edit: To address the original point, Exalted, Shadowrun, and GURPS are all good non-Tolkien systems, as stated. The Fallout PnP seen here (http://falloutpnp.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) might also suit you, if you're willing to forgo actual magic in favor of near-magical science.