WickedSkin said:
Anyway Yahtzee is actually making a lot of sense in his complaints here. Most RPGs is very very tolkien (mind you Lord of the Rings is a complete and utter rip off of norse mythology elves and everything even down to the mother fucking ring).
Not really. While a lot of elements were inspired by Germanic mythology, it's hardly a direct ripoff, since many things were altered and tweaked to fit Tolkien. The two rings are very different in powers, abilities and general make-up.
Something I've noticed a lot when it comes to fantasy is people ascribing most of the typical "Elf" and "Dwarf" cliches to Tolkien. Tolkien's elves were not all nature-loving, bow-stringing, haughty, holier-than-thou peaceniks: only the few seen in Lord of the Rings could possibly fit that description, and they only make a tiny percentage of the Elvish people. Tolkien's dwarves aren't Scottish, wine-guzzling drunkards either, they're more like the Hebrews than anything else. Most of the actual Elf & Dwarf stereotypes can be blamed on Dungeons & Dragons.
The sad thing about modern fantasy is before D&D, fantasy was innovative, and no two worlds were alike. Compare D&D to, say, the Hyborian Age of Conan: no parahuman races like elves or dwarves ruling nations next to humans, no dark lords with armies of subhuman monsters, magic is subtle & mysterious. Then compare both to Dunsany's Pegana, Lovecraft's Dreamlands, Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique and Poseidonis, Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom and Pellucidar, Leigh Brackett's solar system, Jack Vance's Dying Earth, A. Merritt's setting for "The Ship of Ishtar"...
Even after Tolkien & D&D, there are plenty of fantasy universes that don't ascribe to the D&D type. Le Guin's Earthsea, Moorcock's Elric universe, Wolfe's Urth, and more. There's no reason for a fantasy game to rely on the Elf/Dwarf/Dragon/Orc/Dark Lord crutch other than to function as exactly that - a crutch.